Consultancy Styles & Types™

by Peter R. Farey


It takes about 5 minutes – worth every minute!

If you are in a role where you give advice (e.g. as one manager to another) or if you are a consultant, Peter Farey's Consultancy Styles & Types™ self-assessment instrument can help you identify your preferred style. This tool highlights 8 different Types that consultants can take on to be effective in their role. Knowing this helps you extend your own style to match your clients’ requirements.

The profile and graphic in this instrument will show you your assumptions, characteristics and beliefs and help you work at your best with your clients.

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Leaderskill Group Pty Ltd
Sydney NSW Australia

What is your preferred type as a consultant and adviser?

This instrument indicates your preferred "type" and lets you identify tendencies that may hinder or help your work with clients.

NOTE: All information entered on this questionnaire is completely confidential. It cannot be identified in any way. Actual scores are not stored, only averages are retained for analysis (see our Privacy Policy).
Consultancy Roles & Types Questionnaire

1. Which of the following would you tend to think of as your main 'client':

a) The organization you provide the service for?
b) The line manager or staff member you are advising?

2. Which particular aspect of clients would you find more frustrating:

a) Their resistance to new ideas?
b) Their unwillingness to face facts?

3. When you are under pressure for answers, are you more likely to:

a) Let 'gut feel' be your guide?
b) Seek more and better information?

4. Which probably has the greater effect on an organization's culture:

a) Training everyone in a new approach?
b) A new chief executive?

5. Which of these are you more likely to defend:

a) Staff members' rights?
b) Staff members' needs?

6. Are you more likely to be criticized for:

a) Being out of touch with the 'real world'?
b) Sticking with what you know?

7. Which assumption are you more likely to make:

a) That people naturally welcome change?
b) That people naturally resist change?

8. Is your preferred approach as an adviser:

a) Finding and solving problems?
b) Helping to identify and achieve an ideal?

9. Faced with a problem, what would be your usual preference:

a) Analysing it to identify the possible causes?
b) Discovering people's feelings about what's wrong?

10. Which organizational 'interventions' do you think are more effective:

a) Those implemented from the top down?
b) Those implemented from the bottom (or middle) up?

11. Which do you think is likely to be of more value to an organization:

a) A 'credo' about how it is going to treat its people?
b) A 'mission' about what it intends to achieve in the world?

12. Which way would you normally think of 'HR Policies':

a) More of a help than a hindrance?
b) More of a hindrance than a help?

13. When working in a consultancy role, do you generally assume:

a) That you know best?
b) That they know best?

14. In recommending development activities, do you prefer:

a) Games and imaginative exercises?
b) Role playing and simulations?

15. Do you regard it as a worse fault in a manager to be:

a) Too hard on people?
b) Too soft on people?

16. In an advisory role do you prefer to encourage your clients:

a) To 'do things right'?
b) To 'do the right things'?

17. Which approach appeals to you more:

a) Finding/changing people to fit jobs?
b) Finding/changing jobs to fit people?

18. Is it your normal practice to regard rules as being:

a) Things for 'getting round'?
b) Things for 'working within'?

19. From which do you really get more satisfaction:

a) Helping develop a solution you hadn't considered?
b) Having a favourite solution of your own accepted?

20. Do you naturally put more effort into:

a) Examining the costs and benefits of what's proposed?
b) Seeking a broader range of alternatives?

21. In difficult situations, are you more inclined to:

a) Let your head rule your heart?
b) Let your heart rule your head?

22. Which of the following appeals to you more:

a) Organizational transformation?
b) Organizational development?

23. In helping to develop teams, would you be more likely to look first at:

a) The process?
b) The task?

24. Which do you personally find the harder part of brainstorming:

a) Coming up with wild and imaginative ideas?
b) Converting them into practical and sensible proposals?

25. Which of the following words would you LEAST like people to use about you:

a) Dull?
b) Inconsiderate?
c) Disorganized?
d) Aimless?

26. How many years experience do you have as consultant and/or manager?

To see your results: