Annual Report · Coming Spring 2027
The Crisis Leadership Index
The annual report on how executives lead under pressure. First edition publishing Spring 2027.
In short
The Crisis Leadership Index will be an annual report on how executives lead under pressure, built from aggregated, anonymized results of the free Mode Finder. Because the Mode Finder reads decisions rather than self-descriptions, the Index will reflect what leaders do under pressure, not how they describe themselves. The first edition publishes Spring 2027.
What the Index will measure
Primary-mode distribution
The share of executives who default to each of the five modes under pressure: Holding, Restraining, Eroding, Growing, and Embedding. Each mode is named for a leader who held it through a real institutional crisis.
The prevailing shadow
The shadow that shows up most across the field: the liability a leader's own strength creates when pressure pushes it too far. Every mode carries one.
Contradicted instincts
How often a leader's secondary mode sits in direct tension with their primary: the internal contradiction that surfaces when the moment calls for the opposite of the instinct.
Methodology
The Index will aggregate completed runs of the Mode Finder, a forced-choice crisis leadership assessment. Most questions are pressure scenarios: each presents a concrete situation and asks what the leader would actually do, with every option mapping to one of the five modes. Reflective questions feed the shadow signal. The instrument reads decisions, not preferences, and no option reveals the mode it maps to.
Each edition will state its reporting window and cover completed assessments through a stated cutoff date. Results will be aggregated and anonymized; no individual result is published or identifiable. A leader's primary mode is their highest-scoring mode across the scenario questions, the secondary is the next highest, and the active shadow is the highest-scoring shadow attached to either. "Contradicted instincts" will count leaders whose secondary mode occupies the opposite quadrant of the pressure map from their primary.
The five modes and their shadows come from the book Honor Under Pressure and are documented in the Five Modes framework.
Frequently asked
What is the Crisis Leadership Index?
The Crisis Leadership Index will be an annual report on how executives actually lead under pressure, built from aggregated results of the Mode Finder, the free crisis leadership assessment at The Fourth Turning Leader. It will report the distribution of primary leadership modes across the five-mode framework, the prevalence of each shadow, and how often a leader's secondary mode sits in tension with their primary. The first edition publishes Spring 2027.
Where will the data come from?
Every figure will come from completed Mode Finder assessments, aggregated and anonymized. The Mode Finder is a forced-choice instrument that reads decisions rather than self-descriptions: each scenario asks what the leader would actually do under a specific pressure, and the pattern of choices maps to a primary mode, a secondary mode, and an active shadow. No individual result is ever published or identifiable.
What are the five modes the Index will measure?
The five modes are Holding (Cato), Restraining (Washington), Eroding (Seneca), Growing (Lincoln), and Embedding (Marshall). Each names a distinct character structure leaders default to under pressure, drawn from a historical figure who led through a real institutional crisis. Every mode also carries a shadow, the predictable liability that appears when its strength is pushed too far.
How often will the Index be published?
The Index will be published annually, with the reporting window stated in the methodology section of each edition. Once an edition publishes, its figures stay fixed to the stated cutoff date, so a citation to a given year remains stable.
Will I be able to cite the Index?
Yes. Once the first edition publishes, the report will be free to cite with attribution to The Fourth Turning Leader.
Get the first edition when it publishes
One email when the Crisis Leadership Index publishes its first edition in Spring 2027. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
The Instrument
The Index is built one leader at a time.
The Mode Finder is free, takes about five minutes, and requires no credit card. Every completed assessment is one more read in the first edition. Find your primary mode, your secondary, and the shadow operating in you.
Find your mode · free, ~5 min