Why Leaders Need the PXTS Assessment: Clarity, Coaching & Smarter Hiring Decisions 💡
TJ Kastning
Most leaders think they know themselves. After all, they’ve built something, hired people, and made things happen.
But sometimes, the very traits that fuel your early success become the bottlenecks that hold your team—and your future—back.
That’s exactly what came to light during a recent leadership debrief using the PXT Select assessment, a tool that measures thinking style, behavior, and motivation. What unfolded was a clear case for why construction leaders (and anyone responsible for hiring) need this tool in their decision-making arsenal.
The Hidden Problem in Most Hiring Processes 🔎
Let’s start with the brutal truth: most companies hire for skills, yet the top three reasons people leave are:
- Poor job fit
- Misalignment with their manager
- Incompatibility with the team
We’re optimizing hiring for the least predictive factor of success. It’s like judging a tool solely on appearance, without checking if it actually fits the jobsite.
Skills get someone in the door. Fit is what makes them stay.
What the PXT Reveals (That Resumes Don’t) 📊
The PXT isn’t a pass/fail test. It’s a blueprint for understanding:
- Thinking Style – how someone processes and communicates information
- Behavioral Traits – how they naturally operate and interact
- Occupational Interests – what motivates them at a deep level
This data reveals where someone thrives—and where they’ll need to stretch. That’s gold for both hiring and coaching.
One leader in the session scored a 10 out of 10 in independence. Translation? They’re more comfortable doing things on their own than 97.5% of the working population. That trait helped them move fast early on…but now it’s slowing them down.
They weren’t delegating. They were overwhelmed. And their team wasn’t developing.
Sound familiar?
Comfort Zones Aren’t Bad—But They Have Limits 🧠
As the consultant explained, “You’re never going to be great at everything—but you do need to know which traits give you energy and which ones drain you.”
Think of it like a rubber band. Some people can stretch far and sustain it. Others snap when stretched just a little. The PXT shows where each person’s natural “snap point” is.
For example:
- Someone who prefers to work alone (high independence) can absolutely be part of a team—but it takes more energy and intention.
- Someone who scores low in sociability might be perfectly friendly, but networking events will leave them drained.
- Someone with a low conformity score might resist tight processes—not out of rebellion, but because it literally limits their effectiveness.
That’s not dysfunction. That’s wiring.
Better Teams Are Built on Self-Awareness + Role Awareness 👷♂️👷♀️
In this session, the leader realized: “I’ve been moving too fast, handling everything myself, and struggling to coach others—because that’s what’s comfortable for me.”
They also saw how these patterns, left unchecked, would block succession planning, burn out high performers, and cap growth.
This wasn’t new information—it was finally clarity around things they’d felt but couldn’t articulate.
And that’s the power of this tool.
Once your team understands each person’s stretch zones, you can:
✅ Assign roles more effectively
✅ Coach with empathy and specificity
✅ Reduce burnout by aligning work to natural strengths
✅ Hire with foresight, not hindsight
Why Fit Beats Skill—Every Time 🎯
Hiring someone with all the right skills but a poor fit? That’s a ticking time bomb.
As the consultant said: “It’s not what’s on the résumé that matters most. It’s how this person is going to interact—with the job, the team, and the manager.”
If someone can’t flex their communication style to match the rest of your crew—or if they can’t handle the pace or structure of your team environment—it doesn’t matter how technically strong they are. You’re going to feel the friction.
This is the stuff that quietly erodes morale and retention. Or…with the right insight, builds your next generation of leaders.
Leadership Means Learning to Stretch (But Not Snap) 🧗
The assessment won’t change who you are. But it will help you:
- Recognize where your strengths become blind spots
- Name the traits that hold you back from scaling
- Coach your team (and yourself) more effectively
- Build role clarity and reduce hiring risk
Leadership is about knowing when to throttle up, when to pull back, and when to bring others in. You can’t do that well if you’re guessing how people operate—or misunderstanding your own default patterns.
Ready to Build a Team That Fits?
Here’s how we help:
- Evaluate your hiring and leadership situation
- Walk you through our process, including the PXT
- Decide if we’re a good fit to work together
📅 Schedule an exploratory call here: https://app.reclaim.ai/m/ambassador-group/exploratory-call
You already have the drive.
Now get the data to lead smarter.
You’ve got this. 💪
