It Takes All Kinds

Scoping Leader Experience and Development with the Hartman Value Profile

Abstract

Through over a decade of practice, Yale New Haven Health System’s Institute for Excellence (IFE) has utilized the Hartman Value Profile (HVP) in leadership development programs and coaching with notable success. The HVP has proven to be essential in facilitating increased self-awareness within organizational leaders and creating the foundation for impactful coaching. The HVP, as an assessment that quantifies valuative judgment modeled around Robert S. Hartman’s theory of value, provides significant insight at the individual level. However, while the HVP demonstrates merit as an assessment at this level, little empirical research has been conducted beyond validity studies regarding groups. Furthermore, research conducted at this level is aided by use of a theoretical model as a lens in which to study HVP scores. However, doing so creates the risk of defining rigid categories or imposing a hierarchical evaluation of profiles, with some categorized as more desirable than others – respondents would be measured against what one ought to be. The following analysis applies a theoretical model to enable better understanding of respondents’ current experience, strengths in valuative judgment, and developmental opportunities indicated by profile type. Sorting respondents’ scores into one of nine profiles composed by the dominant Part 1 and Part 2 scores enables such inferences for the study of unique profiles at the group level, as well as novel methods for program evaluation with the HVP supported by research at the Hartman Papers Archives at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.