Authorship and Technical Contribution

AUTHORS AND TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION

The leadership framework and associated assessment tools described on this site were developed collaboratively over several decades of applied research, professional practice and organisational consulting.

Core Authors and Originators

Michael Lock

Mick Lock was one of the two principal contributors to the development of the leadership framework presented here.

Trained as both an occupational and an educational psychologist, his professional work focused on the assessment and development of leaders operating in complex organisational environments.

Across his career, he worked extensively in the design and development of assessment centres for managers and senior professionals. A central feature of this work was the exploration of the distinction between leadership preference and leadership effectiveness, which became foundational to the Leadership Judgement Indicator series and the wider family of judgement-based leadership instruments.

His contribution lay primarily in the articulation of the theoretical model, the design of scenario-based assessment methods, and the integration of psychological and organisational perspectives within a coherent judgement-based framework.

Bob Wheeler

Bob Wheeler was the other principal contributor to the development of the leadership framework.

Following graduation in law from the University of Cambridge and qualification as a barrister, he pursued a career in human resources, holding a range of increasingly senior leadership roles in industry.

In 1990 he established an independent management consultancy, through which he worked with organisations undergoing structural change and performance transformation. His professional interests included leadership development, negotiation and coaching.

Bob’s contribution lay primarily in the translation of leadership theory into organisational practice. He played a central role in refining the underlying decision logic, honing the algorithmic structure, and ensuring that the framework and its associated tools remained grounded in the realities of managerial decision making.

Technical and Methodological Contributors

Nick Burnard

Nick Burnard joined Bob and Michael following an invitation to design and implement the computerised scoring and report-generation systems for the original Leadership Judgement Indicator.

With formal training in systems analysis, he worked across application development and IT infrastructure management within manufacturing and telecommunications environments. His professional experience spanned many years.

At the time of development, he was operating his own IT solutions company, specialising in hosted applications, system architecture and internet-based delivery platforms.

Nick was responsible for translating the conceptual and psychometric specifications of the leadership assessments into secure, scalable and reliable technical systems. His work enabled the early deployment of automated testing applications and web-based assessment delivery, which were integral to the practical implementation of the Leadership Judgement tools.

Colin Cooper

Colin Cooper is a distinguished academic psychologist whose work has made a major contribution to the field of psychometrics and psychological assessment. He is the author of An Introduction to Psychometrics and Psychological Assessment, the successor to his prize-winning book Psychological Testing: Theory and Practice, and has an extensive international publication record in individual differences and measurement.

In addition to his academic writing, Colin has been closely involved in the public communication of psychological science. He was responsible for the development of the IQ tests used in the BBC and RTÉ Test the Nation programmes and appeared on related broadcasts in the UK and Japan, helping to bring psychological assessment to a wide public audience.

Colin became involved with the Leadership Judgement Indicator at an early stage of its development and undertook detailed psychometric analyses as early as 2004. He provided rigorous scrutiny of the item content, theoretical model and proposed scoring logic, and made a series of influential recommendations for refinement and validation.

He was a key contributor to the development of the LJI’s distinctive scoring approach, proposing statistically robust alternatives that improved transparency, interpretability and psychometric defensibility. Colin also served as Editor of the first edition of the LJI Manual, and elements of his careful, principled thinking continue to be reflected throughout the LJI series.

Statistical Development and Validation

Jonathan W. Minton

Jon Minton is a quantitative social scientist with a strong methodological background in statistics, secondary data analysis and applied measurement. His academic work has focused on the analysis of complex datasets and the evaluation of measurement models within applied social research.

Jon became involved in the phase of the Leadership Judgement Indicator’s development when increasing attention was being given to the statistical properties of judgement-based assessment. In particular, his analyses clarified the differing statistical behaviour of leadership preference and leadership judgement, helping to distinguish where traditional reliability indices were informative and where alternative interpretive frameworks were required.

Jon’s contribution was marked by academic independence and methodological candour. His willingness to report findings precisely as they emerged strengthened the intellectual integrity of the programme and informed later refinements to the model.

David J. Weiss

Dave Weiss is an American psychologist best known for his pioneering work in psychometrics and computerised adaptive testing. His research has had a lasting influence on modern approaches to psychological measurement, particularly in the areas of item response theory, adaptive assessment and decision-focused testing models.

Dave’s methodological work provided an important intellectual foundation for later developments in judgement-based assessment. His ideas concerning adaptive decision logic, efficiency in measurement, and the relationship between item difficulty and diagnostic value informed subsequent thinking about how complex judgement could be assessed in a structured and psychometrically defensible manner.

His analysis of LJI data and contribution to the LJI lineage was significant, shaping the statistical and conceptual environment within which later refinements were developed.

Nathan A. Thompson

Nate Thompson is a psychometrician and statistician whose work focuses on applied measurement, item response theory and the statistical modelling of complex assessment systems. He has contributed extensively to the practical translation of psychometric theory into operational testing frameworks.

Nate became involved at a critical stage in the evolution of the Leadership Judgement Indicators, working with existing judgement models to explore their statistical properties and extend their formal structure. In particular, discussions with him contributed to the articulation and refinement of the multi-unit judgement framework that underpins later versions of the LJI, clarifying the internal logic and strengthening its statistical coherence, helping to consolidate the internal structure of the model and support its ongoing psychometric robustness.

Jonathan Cox

Jon Cox is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist with extensive experience in organisational measurement, HR analytics and large-scale survey design. His professional background combines psychological training with advanced statistical analysis and evaluation.

Jon’s contribution to the Leadership Judgement Indicator was focused squarely on its psychometric validation. He undertook the formal statistical analyses required to examine reliability, internal consistency and structural coherence, providing the quantitative evidence needed to substantiate the instrument’s claims as a judgement-based assessment tool.

His role was that of a statistical lynchpin, ensuring that the underlying model and scoring approach met accepted professional standards of psychometric defensibility. The strength of the LJI’s internal consistency and the confidence with which its results can be interpreted owe a great deal to his careful and rigorous analytical work.