A nine-question behavioral assessment developed by Mayo Clinic researchers to measure the leadership behaviors most strongly associated with team well-being, burnout, and professional fulfillment.
The Leadership Impact Index is a validated psychometric instrument that captures how a leader’s direct reports experience their leadership across nine behavioral dimensions: recognition, development of others, psychological safety, communication, fairness, values alignment, work-life support, engagement, and overall satisfaction.
Assessment is conducted anonymously. Team members respond to nine structured questions about their immediate supervisor. Results are returned as individual dimension scores and a composite Leadership Impact score, expressed on a consistent scale that allows comparison over time and across leaders.
The instrument can be deployed at any point in a development cycle and repeated to track behavioral change — providing the before-and-after measurement that most leadership programs lack.
The research question originated at Mayo Clinic in the early 2010s, when Dr. Tait Shanafelt and colleagues set out to identify the primary modifiable drivers of physician burnout and professional satisfaction. Across a series of studies spanning thousands of physicians in diverse healthcare settings, one factor emerged as consistently dominant: the behavior of a direct supervisor. That variable predicted professional satisfaction with greater power than salary, specialty, workload, or organizational culture.
From this research base, Mayo Clinic investigators developed a standardized measurement instrument capable of capturing supervisor leadership behavior through structured anonymous input from direct reports. The nine behavioral dimensions in the instrument reflect the factors most consistently associated with professional fulfillment across the published literature.
The instrument was subsequently refined and validated through multiple independent studies, including a 2024 psychometric analysis (Ashmore et al., Journal of Healthcare Leadership) that confirmed its internal consistency, construct validity, and applicability across complex organizational structures including matrixed leadership environments.
The Leadership Impact Index is supported by 14+ peer-reviewed studies published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, JAMA, BMJ Open, JAMA Network Open, Academic Medicine, and the Journal of Healthcare Leadership. This body of research establishes both the behavioral science underlying the instrument and its psychometric validity as a measurement tool.
Key findings across the literature include: physicians who rated their supervisor’s leadership in the top tertile were 48% less likely to report burnout and 66% less likely to report intent to leave within two years, compared to those who rated their supervisor in the bottom tertile (Mete et al., BMJ Open, 2022). Leadership scores were also independently predictive of burnout status two years later in longitudinal analysis (Shanafelt et al., Mayo Clin Proc, 2021).
The instrument’s psychometric properties — internal consistency, convergent validity, and structural integrity across organizational configurations — have been confirmed through independent analysis. For a complete list of supporting studies, see the Research & Validation page.
lower burnout likelihood among physicians with top-tertile supervisors
Mete et al., BMJ Open 2022lower intent to leave within two years
Mete et al., BMJ Open 2022peer-reviewed studies establishing the instrument’s validity and behavioral science foundation
Mayo Clin Proc · JAMA · BMJ Open · JHL · Academic MedicineLeadership behavior is the most modifiable predictor of team well-being identified in the published literature. Until recently, no practical tool existed to measure it at scale — without consultants, certification requirements, or lengthy implementation cycles.
The Leadership Impact Index was built to close that gap. It makes a validated Mayo Clinic measurement instrument available to any organization — regardless of size or sector — through a platform designed for straightforward deployment, repeatable measurement, and clear reporting. The goal is not to replace leadership development, but to give organizations the data to evaluate whether it is working.
The Leadership Impact Index is brought to organizations by Champions of Wellness — the team that has partnered with Mayo Clinic for over a decade to deliver the Mayo Clinic Well-Being Index, the leading clinician well-being measurement instrument in North American healthcare.
The same operational standards, delivery infrastructure, and institutional relationship that established the Well-Being Index as the field standard are applied to the Leadership Impact Index today.
Create a free account to access demo data and see the full reporting suite before committing to an assessment.
Free to explore. Only pay when you send your first assessment.