Uncategorised Archives | JQ Associates

Empowered Leadership in a Changing World

04 Sep 2025
Sean McEnery
Uncategorised
Comments Off on Empowered Leadership in a Changing World

Business leader guiding colleagues through change, reflecting empowered leadership.

Written by Megan McEnery

Business and Client Director, BA (Hons), MA, PGCE, CAT

Empowered Leadership in a Changing World: How Executive Assessment and Development Enable Growth in a BANI Environment

Change is accelerating and with it, the opportunity to reshape how we lead. For our clients, we understand that success requires more than reacting to disruption. It means empowering people to navigate uncertainty with confidence and purpose.

At JQA, we partner with organisations to build empowered leadership through our executive assessment and leadership development solutions. We help businesses unlock the potential of their leaders to grow, adapt, and thrive in the face of new and evolving challenges.

From VUCA to BANI: Understanding a New Leadership Landscape

The world of work continues to evolve rapidly. What was once described as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) is now being reframed as BANI (brittle, anxious, non-linear, incomprehensible). The BANI framework, introduced by futurist Jamais Cascio, offers leaders a way to understand the brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible dynamics shaping today’s world. His book on this subject is due to be released in October 2025.

In a February 2025 article for Forbes titled Forget VUCA. The World Is BANI Now, Kevin Kruse shares how the BANI framework captures the more nuanced, interconnected challenges leaders are experiencing today: from fast-moving change to growing pressure and complexity. With the right mindset and support, these are not just obstacles, they are an invitation for transformative leadership.

In a BANI world, leaders who are self-aware, emotionally intelligent, and strategically agile are not only more effective, but they also create stability, inspire confidence, and drive meaningful progress.

“Our leadership solutions are designed to help you navigate change with purpose and strength.”

Empowering Leadership Potential: JQA’s Strategic Approach

At JQA, we believe leadership is not a fixed trait. It is a capability that can be measured, developed, and continually strengthened. Our role is to empower individuals and organisations with the insight, clarity, and tools to lead with confidence in any environment.

1. Clarity in Complexity

Through robust executive assessment, we help leaders more deeply understand how they think, make decisions, and lead in complex scenarios. This empowers more informed, confident leadership, even when the path forward is not immediately clear.

2. Emotional Agility and Wellbeing

Our development programmes focus on emotional intelligence, self-regulation, and resilience. Leaders learn to navigate pressure constructively, enabling them to support not just business performance but also the wellbeing of their teams.

3. Authentic, Values-Led Leadership

With tools like 360-degree feedback and coaching, we help leaders build strong self-awareness and lead with authenticity. When leaders understand themselves and their impact, they inspire trust and create lasting alignment across the organisation.

4. Adaptability and Innovation

Today’s environment rewards curiosity and forward-thinking. We empower leaders to challenge assumptions, embrace change, and foster cultures of innovation so businesses remain proactive and prepared for what is next.

Why Empowered Leadership Matters

Empowered leaders drive individual performance, and they build empowered teams. These teams are more engaged, collaborative, and capable of making informed decisions under pressure. Over time, this culture of empowerment extends across the organisation, creating a ripple effect that strengthens overall resilience and adaptability.

Organisations that invest in leadership development are better positioned to:
• Make well-informed decisions, even in dynamic environments
• Build cultures of trust, engagement, and accountability
• Support long-term employee wellbeing and retention
• Encourage innovation that drives sustainable progress
• Strengthen team-level agility and collaboration

When leaders are empowered, teams become more capable, and the entire organisation becomes more resilient and future ready.

Final Thoughts: Empowerment

At JQA, our mission is to empower individuals and organisations with the capabilities they need to lead what is next. We provide the insight, development, and guidance to help leaders grow with confidence.

Whether you are facing transformation, scaling for growth, or simply preparing for the future, our leadership solutions are designed to help you navigate change with purpose and strength.
Empowered leadership is not just about managing complexity; it is about unlocking potential within leaders, teams, and across the organisation.

If your organisation is looking to future-proof its leadership, invest in growth, and cultivate a thriving, adaptable culture, we invite you to explore how JQA can support your journey.

Would you like to find out more?

Integrity: What You Do When No One Is Watching

26 Aug 2025
Sean McEnery
Uncategorised
Comments Off on Integrity: What You Do When No One Is Watching

Written by Jo Larkam

Chartered Psychologist, AFBPsS, HCPC Registered Psychologist, RCDP and JQA Lead Associate

Of all the values we talk about, integrity is often the quietest. It doesn’t always grab attention, but when it’s missing, the consequences are loud.

In recent years, we’ve seen leaders lose trust in a matter of days. Sometimes it’s a headline-making mistake. Other times, it’s a slow erosion, one compromise at a time. As a psychologist, and as part of a values-led business, I’ve been thinking about what integrity really means and why it matters so much.

At JQA, integrity isn’t just a principle. It’s a practice. We embed it into how we work with clients, how we engage with candidates, and how we hold ourselves to account. For me personally, it’s also anchored in the professional codes I’ve committed to through the British Psychological Society and the Career Development Institute. These frameworks don’t just guide what I do, they remind me why I do it.

Building trust, not just testing it

Nowhere is integrity more relevant than in our Executive Assessment work. These are in-depth conversations, designed not just to evaluate what someone has done, but to explore what really drives them. What are they motivated by? How do they respond when the pressure mounts? What values do they operate from, and when might those values be tested?

When a public figure falls from grace, we often ask ourselves: Could that risk have been seen earlier?

While no assessment can predict the future, what we do aim to uncover are the pressures, patterns and personality traits that could signal risk. Not in isolation, but in the context of a team, a role, and an environment. We bring rigour, insight and a human lens to help our clients make confident, informed decisions.

“It’s also anchored in the professional codes I’ve committed to through the British Psychological Society and the Career Development Institute”

Integrity shows up in the small things

We often think of integrity as something tested in big moments — a major crisis, a values clash, a public reckoning. But the truth is, it shows up in the everyday. It’s how you behave when no one’s watching. How you give feedback. Whether you keep your word. Whether your values still hold when the pressure’s on.

At JQA, we see integrity in how we write proposals, how we talk about candidates, and how we handle sensitive information. We challenge each other, ask the hard questions, and hold space for honesty, even when it’s uncomfortable.

It’s also in the trust we’ve built over time. Some of our client relationships have lasted decades, not because of flash or spin, but because we’ve earned their trust. They know we’ll do the right thing for the individuals we assess, and we’ll speak honestly about what’s right for their business. Our insights support real decision-making and are delivered with care, transparency and professional respect.

It’s one of the real privileges of working with JQA — following individuals through their careers, and being there at key moments when they’re hired, promoted, or seeking support. That kind of trust can’t be faked. It’s earned, one conversation at a time.

A value that shapes culture and leadership

When integrity is present in a leadership culture, it shows. People feel safe to speak up. Decisions are made transparently. And when things go wrong, as they sometimes do, there’s a clear foundation for how to respond. Integrity doesn’t prevent challenge, but it gives you a way to navigate it with clarity and respect.

If you’re thinking about what integrity looks like in your leadership team, or how to assess for it meaningfully in your next hire, we’d love to help. In a world that sometimes moves too fast and cuts too many corners, integrity is what keeps us grounded.

It may be the quietest value, but it speaks volumes.

Excellence in leadership Assessment: What It Really Means at JQA

Written by Catherine Marks

Consulting Director

“In our work at JQA, excellence is non-negotiable.”

If you ask my husband about my relationship with ‘excellence’, he might laugh. At home, I am not remotely precious about DIY or gardening projects. ‘Good enough’ is often good enough. I am relaxed, pragmatic, and not the least bit bothered if the picture frames are not quite straight.

But even he knows: when it matters, I care deeply about getting it right.

And in our work at JQA, excellence is non-negotiable.

It is also one of our core values. As we approach our twenty-fifth anniversary, it is clear that this quiet but unwavering commitment to quality is what has earned us the trust of our clients.

At JQA, excellence does not mean being fussy or rigid. Nor does it mean perfectionism for its own sake. For us, it is about rigour, thoughtfulness, and precision, all in service of delivering something genuinely useful. Our assessments must offer insight, not just information. They are grounded in data, but shaped by expert judgment and a deep understanding of context.

We live this value in the way we operate every day. From the care we take to train our new associates in our specific tools and techniques (and these are, without exception, very experienced professionals already delivering to the highest standards), to the careful selection of evidence-based tools, to the QA process that every report goes through before it leaves our hands, our approach is built to uphold the highest standards. And we do not just talk about best practice, we keep refining it.

Our assessment methods are one of the clearest expressions of this commitment to excellence. Whether we are evaluating cognitive complexity, leadership potential, or derailment risks, we draw on research-backed models, real-world insight, and our own internal validity data to identify the level of work at which a leader is most likely to thrive. This is where their thinking matches the complexity of the role, where they are more energised, more effective, and better able to contribute. It is the state of flow, and helping leaders operate in that space is central to the value we aim to create. For our clients, this alignment translates into confident, evidence-based decisions about potential, succession, and leadership fit. It is a standard we hold ourselves to, not just because it works, but because it reflects the care, precision, and integrity we believe excellence demands.

Excellence at JQA also means knowing what not to do. We do not overinterpret a personality profile. We do not make assumptions without triangulating data. And we do not cut corners, even when time is tight.

Ultimately, excellence is about trust. Our clients trust us to help them make big, often sensitive decisions about people, roles, succession, and strategy. That trust is earned not only by the quality of our reports, but by the integrity, nuance, and care with which we deliver them.

It is also worth saying that excellence does not mean being inflexible. In fact, we work hard to balance consistency with pragmatism, adapting to different cultures, organisational contexts, and talent strategies, while staying true to our principles. That balance is something clients often comment on.

At home, I am married to someone who served in the Royal Navy, and he knows a thing or two about high standards. We are very different in how we apply them (and let us just say, he is far more particular about wall-mounted shelves). But we complement each other well. And he is the first to agree: when it matters, I am relentless about quality.

Uncategorised