LPLI Overview
What is LPLI?
LPLI, the Lewis Pastoral Leadership Inventory™ is a 360º leadership assessment inventory specifically designed for church leaders to help them identify individual strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their ministry effectiveness. LPLI identifies a leader’s strengths and weaknesses as seen by them and others. LPLI users receive a personalized leadership profile based on input received through online inventories.
What is a 360º leadership assessment inventory?
A 360º assessment inventory integrates self-appraisal with feedback from others (called observers) who are familiar with a leader’s work to provide a comprehensive, balanced appraisal of an individual’s effectiveness.
What is the purpose of LPLI?
To provide feedback for improvement and growth in ministry. The results can be used for self-discovery, gathering feedback from others, setting goals for improvement, identifying continuing education needs, and even tracking progress over time. One of LPLI’s the most important benefits is that it provides the basis for informed and objective conversations between a church leader and their supervisor or supervising committee.
Should LPLI be used for performance reviews or evaluations?
LPLI doesn’t replace other aspects of performance evaluation but can be a key component in helping ministry leaders and those who work with them gain a fresh perspective on their work.
How is LPLI administered?
LPLI is administered online and observers are invited to participate via email messages. However printable versions of the inventories can be downloaded for observers who do not use computers or have internet access. Printable versions include instructions on how they can be returned by mail to the Lewis Center.
Is LPLI confidential?
Yes. Your profile will not be released to anyone other than you, unless you specifically authorize the Lewis Center to release it. All individual records are kept private. In any published report, only composite results will be reported.
What LPLI Measures
What does LPLI measure?
LPLI uses 75 indicators of effectiveness that relate to a three-fold understanding of fruitful leadership encompassing Character, Competence, and Contribution. LPLI assessments ask participants and their observers to rate performance on these indicators using a seven-point frequency scale.
How were LPLI indicators developed?
The Lewis Center compiled LPLI’s indicators and categories by analyzing definitions of effectiveness in ministry used by different judicatories and studying the literature of effectiveness in ministry. The process included review by theological educators and church leaders. The indicators were further refined through two years of field testing. Learn more: Research and Validity of LPLI.
Reliability of LPLI
Is LPLI reliable?
Before its public launch in 2009, LPLI underwent two years of extensive field testing that included over a thousand pastors from across the U.S. The results have been subjected to various tests of statistical reliability and verified through comparisons with external evaluations of effectiveness. Learn more: Research and Validity of LPLI.
How does LPLI deal with the “halo effect?”
A challenge for some leadership assessment instruments, particularly in the nonprofit sector, is the tendency for scores to skew toward the high end of the scale. This tendency can be exacerbated when assessing pastors or other spiritual leaders, since a “halo effect” can color people’s perceptions. Because assessment on LPLI indicators tend to cluster at the top end of the range, differences that might seem slight — say between a score of 6.1 and 6.45 on a 7 point scale — can actually be significant. To help put scores in a larger context, individual LPLI scores are presented side-by-side with “LPLI Average” figures that permits an individual to gauge how his or her self-scores and observers scores compare to the average scores for those who have used the LPLI in the past. Note: LPLI averages are not yet available for the LPLI Staff Version, LPLI District Superintendent Version, or LPLI Bishop Version, which are newer.