Assessments

Effective talent decisions start with a clear read on your people, including their strengths, development needs, and potential. Our scientifically validated assessments give individuals, teams, and organizations holistic, evidence-based insight, and pair every result with an expert debrief that turns data into a development plan.

Two Birchwood colleagues reviewing assessment results at a laptop, one pointing to the screen
Our approach

Insight into strengths, gaps, and potential.

  • 01

    Personality and behavioural assessment, understanding how people think, relate, handle conflict, and lead under pressure to build greater skills in communication and collaboration.

  • 02

    Evaluation of leadership skills and competencies, mapped to the demands of the current or aspiring role.

  • 03

    Multi-perspective, 360-degree feedback that draws a full picture from the people a leader actually works with.

Why Birchwood

Why organizations assess with us.

Our tools are rigorous, and they're only ever as useful as the interpretation and support around them. That's where we focus.

  • Scientifically validated, evidence-based tools and methods that produce accurate, meaningful insight.
  • Organizationally embedded, every assessment is customized to the skills and competencies that actually matter for the role.
  • Expert interpretation from consultants trained at the graduate level in psychology, business, and leadership development.
  • Built for development, results come with strategies to build on strengths and close gaps, not just a score.
  • Multiple data points, we combine tools because more valid measures mean a more accurate picture.
  • Aligned to your culture, insights mapped to your organization's goals, needs, and way of working.
Leadership assessment

Three lenses on leadership.

For existing, emerging, and executive leaders, we tailor the assessment to the competencies the role demands, determined together from the outset.

  1. 360-degree feedback. A customized multi-rater process that builds self-awareness through the perspectives of direct reports, peers, supervisors, and others. We guide every step from setup to rollout, and debrief each report with an expert coach to turn insight into development actions.
  2. Leadership competency assessment. Pinpoints current strengths and development areas for existing, prospective, and emerging leaders across the key competencies proven to be associated with leadership success, with the competency set agreed on collaboratively at the start.
  3. Executive leadership assessment. At the executive level we evaluate strategic competencies, strategic thinking and planning, visioning, high-level problem solving, and innovation, combining 360 feedback with objective measures for multiple, corroborating data sources.
  • 1

    360-degree feedback

    A customized multi-rater process that builds self-awareness through the perspectives of direct reports, peers, supervisors, and others. We guide every step from setup to rollout, and debrief each report with an expert coach to turn insight into development actions.

  • 2

    Leadership competency assessment

    Pinpoints current strengths and development areas for existing, prospective, and emerging leaders across the key competencies proven to be associated with leadership success, with the competency set agreed on collaboratively at the start.

  • 3

    Executive leadership assessment

    At the executive level we evaluate strategic competencies, strategic thinking and planning, visioning, high-level problem solving, and innovation, combining 360 feedback with objective measures for multiple, corroborating data sources.

A Birchwood practitioner taking notes while debriefing assessment results with a client seated across from her
Behavioural tools

Personality and behavioural assessments.

We offer a suite of behavioural tools, each measuring a specific element of individual and group dynamics, from leadership capability and emotional intelligence to conflict style and workplace personality:

  • Leadership Effectiveness Assessment (LEA)
  • Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ)
  • Emergenetics
  • Workplace Personality Index
  • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
  • EQ-i emotional intelligence assessment

Every assessment is analyzed and interpreted by an expert psychologist or coach, and each debrief ends in a customized development plan, providing actionable next steps that are tailored to the person's goals and learning style. Our process is backed by ongoing support through coaching, check-ins, and progress reviews, so that insights translate into meaningful, lasting change.

Questions

Frequently asked questions.

Where we work

Every assessment is curated as a complete learning experience, administered and interpreted by an expert psychologist or coach, in person in Calgary and Toronto and virtually with organizations across Canada.

Assessments are powerful on their own, and more so paired with coaching. Explore leadership & executive coaching

Assessing beyond the individual? Team Effectiveness measures how a team functions together, and Climate & Culture measures the organization as a whole.

Know your people. Grow your leaders.

Reach out to speak with one of our organizational psychologists about how assessments, on their own or paired with coaching, can support development across your organization.