Energy Leadership Index: What Is It?

There's something fascinating that happens when you really pay attention to yourself throughout the day. You might start your morning feeling centered and optimistic – ready to tackle that important presentation with grace. But by 3 PM, after a few challenging emails and an unexpected crisis, you find yourself snapping at colleagues and feeling like everything is working against you.

Same person. Same day. Completely different energy.

This isn't a character flaw or a sign that you need more coffee (though coffee never hurts). It's actually a glimpse into one of the most powerful leadership concepts I've encountered: the Energy Leadership Index.

The Energy Leadership Index (ELI) is a research-backed assessment that measures how your energy shows up in two key scenarios: when you're under stress versus when you're performing at your best. It reveals your energy patterns across seven distinct levels – from destructive, draining energy to creative, life-giving energy.

Beyond Personality Tests: Why ELI Changes Everything

Don't get me wrong – I love a good personality assessment (I used to work for 16personalities.com after all!). There's something deeply satisfying about taking a well-designed test and suddenly having language for patterns you've always felt but couldn't quite articulate. Whether it's understanding your communication style, learning about your decision-making preferences, or discovering why certain work environments energize you while others drain you, personality assessments offer valuable insights.

But here's what makes the Energy Leadership Index powerful: while most assessments capture who you are at a fixed point in time, the ELI reveals how you dynamically shift throughout your day – and life for that matter.

Traditional personality tests might tell you that you're naturally collaborative or that you prefer structure over ambiguity. All true and helpful! But they don't explain why you can be the most patient, understanding leader in the world on Tuesday, then find yourself feeling defensive and reactive by Thursday afternoon when the same challenges arise.

The ELI bridges this gap beautifully. It doesn't contradict what other assessments tell you about your core preferences and strengths. Instead, it adds a crucial dimension: how your energy – and therefore your behavior, decision-making, and leadership style – shifts based on circumstances, stress levels, and your overall state of being.

Your personality preferences provide the foundation, but your energy levels determine how those preferences show up in real time.

Two Types of Energy

The entire Energy Leadership framework rests on a simple but profound distinction between two types of energy:

• Anabolic Energy is constructive, life-giving energy. It builds you up, strengthens relationships, and creates positive outcomes. Think of those moments when you feel genuinely inspired, when challenges seem like interesting puzzles to solve, when you naturally lift others up around you.

• Catabolic Energy is destructive, draining energy. It tears down, weakens connections, and creates negative outcomes. We've all been here…those times when everything feels like a personal attack, when you're fighting against the world, or when you feel completely powerless to change anything.

  
  

Neither is inherently good or bad. Sometimes catabolic energy serves us. Anger can motivate us to finally address an injustice, and hitting rock bottom can catalyze important changes. The key is conscious choice about which energy serves you in any given moment.

Want to find out what your default Level of Energy is? Take the test and book a debrief!

The Seven Levels: Your Energy Fingerprint

The ELI reveals seven distinct levels of energy, each with its own characteristics, worldview, and way of engaging with life. Without diving too deep (we'll explore each level thoroughly in upcoming posts), here's the landscape:

• Levels 1-2 are catabolic – energy that feels heavy and destructive, though it can sometimes mobilize us toward change.

• Level 3 sits right in the middle – it's functional but not flourishing, like being on autopilot. Everything is simply “fine.” 

• Levels 4-7 are anabolic – increasingly constructive, creative, and life-giving energy that serves both you and others.

  
  

Most of us operate from multiple levels throughout our day, week, or month. Your ELI results show your unique pattern—where you tend to go under stress (your catabolic default) and where you naturally operate when things are going well (your anabolic range).

The ELI is your new favorite assessment

Why This Matters for You

Whether you're navigating a career transition, building stronger relationships, or simply wanting to show up more intentionally in your daily life, understanding your energy patterns is game-changing.

When you know your stress patterns, you can catch yourself earlier. When you understand your natural strengths, you can leverage them more consciously. When you recognize that energy is a choice (with practice), you stop being a victim of your circumstances and start becoming the conscious leader of your own life.

This isn't about forcing yourself to be positive all the time or pretending difficult emotions don't exist. It's about having more options in how you respond to life's inevitable challenges. It's about recognizing that the energy you bring to any situation significantly influences the outcome.

Your Energy Leadership Journey Starts Here

The most powerful insight from the ELI is discovering that you have more choice than you realized. That stressed, reactive version of yourself isn't the "real" you any more than the inspired, creative version is. They're both you, operating from different energy levels.

The question becomes: Which energy serves you (and others) best at this moment? And how can you consciously choose to shift when your default patterns aren't working?

Here's what I've learned after years of this work: when you change your energy, you change everything. Your relationships improve. Your problem-solving capacity expands. Your resilience grows. You become the kind of person others want to be around, work with, and follow.

And it all starts with paying attention to that ever-shifting energy within you – the same energy that makes you completely different at 9 AM versus 3 PM on any given day.

Ready to discover your unique energy fingerprint? It all starts with one simple question: What energy am I bringing to this moment?

Curious about your own energy patterns? The Energy Leadership Index assessment can provide profound insights into how you show up under stress versus when you're thriving. As a certified ELI coach, I help people understand and leverage their unique energy signature for greater impact and fulfillment. Read what a session entails here or just go ahead and book your session here.