Leadership Compass is a guided leadership development experience that helps participants turn self-reflection into a practical, shareable leadership guide.
The process is built around five pillars. Each pillar asks focused questions, generates reflection cards, and helps the participant refine those ideas into a clearer leadership philosophy.
What Leadership Compass helps you build
Leadership Compass is designed to help you define:
- who you are as a leader
- what values guide your decisions
- what standards you expect from yourself and your team
- how you stay consistent under pressure
- how you communicate, lead, and adapt over time
- what commitments you want to keep visible after the program ends
The final result is your Leadership Compass Guide: a working document that brings your values, standards, commitments, and leadership practices together in one place.
How the process works
Leadership Compass usually follows this flow:
- Join a cohort A cohort is the group of participants completing Leadership Compass together.
- Enter CliftonStrengths, if available If you have CliftonStrengths results, you can enter them so your strengths can be included in your reflection process. If you do not have CliftonStrengths results, you can still continue.
- Complete each enabled pillar Your organization or program Champion may enable all five pillars or only selected pillars.
- Review reflection cards After each pillar, Leadership Compass creates reflection cards from your answers. These cards are a starting point. You can review, edit, and accept them.
- Build your Leadership Compass Guide After completing the selected pillars, your accepted reflections are assembled into a guide you can edit, sign, and share by invitation.
- Live your Compass After the guide is created, you can continue using the post-program dashboard to track commitments, log alignment moments, and stay connected to your leadership practices.
The five pillars
Pillar 1: Know Your Core
This pillar helps you identify your core values, purpose, strengths, and emotional intelligence focus. It is the foundation for the rest of the Compass.
Pillar 2: Set Your Standard
This pillar helps you define your leadership philosophy, non-negotiables, team standards, and personal commitment to model the standard.
Pillar 3: Live Your Promise
This pillar focuses on alignment between what you say you value and how you actually lead. It includes rituals, feedback loops, accountability partners, and daily leadership practices.
Pillar 4: Lead Your Team
This pillar helps you think through communication, conflict, decision-making, inclusion, psychological safety, and your team operating model.
Pillar 5: Refine Your Compass
This pillar helps you review, adapt, and realign your leadership over time. It includes a development roadmap and a recommitment to keep your Compass current.
What is free and what may require an unlock?
Leadership Compass can be enabled for an organization at no cost.
The following are generally available at no cost:
- Leadership Compass access
- CliftonStrengths entry
- Pillar 1
- the initial Leadership Philosophy informed by Pillar 1
Additional pillars may require an unlock based on your organization’s program setup.
Leaders and Facilitators are not charged as participants simply because they support the cohort. Participants are the users completing the pillar workflow.
Common roles in Leadership Compass
Champion
The Champion manages the Leadership Compass program for the organization. They may create cohorts, assign participants, add leaders, and connect facilitators.
Participant
A Participant completes the Leadership Compass pillars and builds their personal Leadership Compass Guide.
Leader
A Leader may be responsible for a group of participants. Leaders can review progress for the participants assigned to them, depending on the organization’s setup.
Facilitator
A Facilitator supports participants through the process. Facilitators may review reflection progress, provide feedback, message participants, and help guide check-ins.
Admin
An Admin may have broader access to configure Leadership Compass settings for the organization.
What participants can expect
Participants should expect a guided experience, not a blank-page writing assignment.
Each pillar uses short prompts, selection tools, tables, and reflection questions to help you capture meaningful leadership content without having to write everything from scratch.
After each pillar, you will review reflection cards. These cards are meant to be edited. Your final guide should sound like you.
What leaders and facilitators can expect
Leaders and facilitators help participants stay engaged and supported.
Depending on permissions, they may be able to:
- view cohort progress
- see which participants have started or completed pillars
- send encouragement
- request or schedule check-ins
- review reflection cards
- provide facilitator feedback
- support participants in completing their guide
Access is role-based. Leaders and facilitators should only see the participants or cohorts they are assigned to.
What happens after all selected pillars are complete?
Once you complete all selected pillars, Leadership Compass moves you into the completion experience.
From there, you can:
- generate your Leadership Compass Guide
- review and edit the guide
- sign the guide
- share it by invitation
- continue using the post-program dashboard
- log alignment moments
- review commitments
- track leadership momentum over time
Tips for getting the most out of Leadership Compass
- Answer honestly rather than perfectly.
- Keep your wording practical and specific.
- Edit reflection cards so they sound like your voice.
- Treat your guide as a living leadership document.
- Revisit your commitments regularly.
- Use check-ins and feedback loops to stay aligned over time.
Troubleshooting
I do not see my cohort.
You may not have been assigned to the cohort yet, or your role may not have access. Contact your Champion, Admin, or Facilitator.
I completed a pillar but do not see the next step.
Make sure you accepted the reflection cards for that pillar. Completing the questions and accepting the reflection cards are separate parts of the workflow.
I do not have CliftonStrengths results.
You can still continue if your organization allows the fallback strengths workflow. CliftonStrengths can enrich your Compass, but the process can still work without it.
I cannot generate my guide.
Your selected pillars may not be complete yet, or your reflections may not have been accepted. If all required work is complete and the guide is still unavailable, contact your Champion or Admin.
