The Inner Authority Suite is a family of ten reflective instruments for leadership development, coaching, and organisational practice. What it produces is structured territory for a facilitated conversation — a picture of how this person is currently organised in relation to authority, relationship, self-expression, and the pressure the system places on them.
The profile is not the conclusion. It is the beginning of an inquiry — the material that makes a certain kind of conversation possible.
"A score tells you what someone does. The suite was built to map what is driving it — the belief system beneath the behaviour, and what happens to authority and self-expression when the pressure rises."
02 — Why it exists
Why most assessments fall short.
Most leadership assessments operate at the surface of behaviour. They tell you what a person does — their communication style, their personality type, their preferred way of working. This is useful. It is not sufficient.
Behaviour is the output. What produces it — the belief systems, the authority patterns, the relational dynamics operating beneath awareness — is rarely visible in a personality profile. And yet it is precisely these deeper patterns that determine what a leader can and cannot do when the system puts them under pressure.
The Inner Authority Suite was built to make that architecture visible. Not to categorise people. Not to predict performance. To open a conversation about how this particular person, in this particular role, is currently organising themselves in relation to authority, relationship, and self-expression — and what might be possible if that organisation were examined and, where appropriate, revised.
"The question the suite asks is not what kind of person is this? It is how is this person organising themselves — and what is that organisation making possible, and what is it making difficult?"
03 — The framework
Three levels. One integrated picture.
Most leadership instruments profile the individual in isolation. The Inner Authority Suite holds three dimensions simultaneously — treating them as constantly shaping each other.
Level one · Inner person
How authority and relationship are currently organised
Ego state distribution, belief schemas, shadow material — the patterns operating beneath the behaviour, formed before this role and now shaping how the person functions in it.
IAPRAPSILIPAPRSP
Level two · Relational field
How others actually experience this person
The gap between self-experience and relational reality. How colleagues experience the leader across the same six ego state dimensions — anonymously. Often the most generative data in a programme.
360
Level three · Systemic context
How the organisation shapes what is possible
Where the leader's communication formation and the organisation's culture are misaligned. What the system is producing that is being experienced as a personal difficulty.
CFP
04 — The instruments
Ten instruments. One integrated platform.
Each instrument is a structured starting point for a facilitated conversation — not a verdict about a person.
IAP
Inner Authority Profile
Ego state organisation in leadership — how authority, care, and self-expression are currently held. 54 items, 7-point scale. The primary opening instrument.
⏱ 12 minutes54 items
Inner
RAP
Relational Authority Profile
Twelve belief schemas shaping professional authority — support, adequacy, approval, indispensability, and the expectation of difficulty. Grounded in schema theory.
⏱ 15 minutes48 items
Inner
SI
Shadow Profile
Ten open questions surfacing what operates outside awareness. AI-generated qualitative report. The report is structured around four sections — what is most presented, its shadow, what is difficult to own, and one thing to hold.
⏱ 20 minutesOpen format
Inner · Facilitated use only
LI
Leadership Inquiry
The internal model of leadership — inherited beliefs, formative figures, the gap between the leadership aspired to and the leadership actually delivered. AI-generated qualitative report.
⏱ 25 minutesOpen format
Inner
360
IAP Relational Mirror
A 360° companion to the IAP. Colleagues rate the leader across the same six ego state dimensions — anonymously. The instrument generates a composite relational picture alongside the self-report. The gap between how the leader sees themselves and how the field experiences them is often the most generative data in a programme.
⏱ 8 minutes per raterMin. 3 raters
Relational
CFP
Communication Field Profile
Seven dimensions rated twice — formation and organisation. The gap between them is where communication difficulties most often live. Grounded in Schein and Erin Meyer's Culture Map.
⏱ 10 minutes42 items
Systemic
PAP
Personal Authority Profile
The IAP ego state framework reframed entirely for personal and relational life — how the person gives and receives care, holds standards, expresses themselves, and navigates conflict and adaptation in close relationships. The same person often shows a markedly different profile in personal life than in their leadership role. That divergence is where the most important developmental material often lives. Designed for therapy, coaching, and personal development contexts — not for organisational or leadership use.
⏱ 12 minutes54 items
Relational
RSP
Relational Schema Profile
The RAP schema framework reframed for intimate relationships. The twelve belief patterns in personal and close relationship contexts — dependency, openness, adequacy, and containment.
⏱ 15 minutes48 items
Relational
PPR
PAP Partner Relational Profile
A companion to the PAP completed by the subject's partner. The partner rates the subject across the same six ego state dimensions — generating a composite relational picture of how the subject's personal authority patterns are experienced in close relationship. The gap between self-report and partner report is often where the most important relational material surfaces.
⏱ 12 minutes54 items
Relational · Facilitated use only
CCP
Containment Capacity Profile
Twelve vignette-based situations across four pressure types — ambiguity, dependency, loss, and conflict. Reveals what tends to happen to systemic anxiety when it reaches a leader: whether it is metabolised, absorbed, deflected, or evacuated. Produces a pressure map and characteristic move. The most theoretically advanced instrument in the suite.
⏱ 20 minutes12 vignettes
Systemic · Advanced
05 — How it works
From registration to report.
Participants never need to log in or create an account. Everything is managed from the practitioner portal. The client receives a personalised link by email and completes the instrument in their own time.
1
Register
Create your practitioner account. Add clients individually or organise them into programmes. Psychologists are approved immediately; coaches and OD practitioners share a brief note on their theoretical background.
2
Send
From your client's profile, select an instrument and send. The client receives a personalised email with a unique link — no login required, no account to create. One click takes them directly to the instrument.
3
Receive
On completion, the report is emailed to both the client and the practitioner simultaneously. The client has their report before the session. You have it in your portal alongside all previous reports for that client.
4
Facilitate
The report opens territory — it is not the conclusion. The facilitated session is where the real inquiry happens. What surprises the client, what they push back on, what confirms something unnamed — that is the material.
06 — The platform
Your practitioner dashboard.
Everything in one place — all your clients, all their instruments, all their progress. For organisations running group programmes, a separate dashboard shows cohort-level data without exposing individual results.
innerauthoritysuite.com / portal / dashboard
12
Active clients
3
Programmes
34
Completions
78%
Completion rate
Client
IAP
RAP
SI
360
CFP
Status
A. Thornton
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
5 of 5
R. Singh
✓
✓
—
—
—
2 of 5
M. Webb
✓
—
—
—
—
1 of 5
07 — What this requires
The facilitated context.
The instruments are not self-service. They are designed to be used in a facilitated context — with a practitioner who has the theoretical formation to hold what surfaces. A profile read without a practitioner present is incomplete.
This is not a restriction. It is the design. The profile opens territory that requires someone trained to hold it. The most important material — what surprises the client, what they push back on, what they cannot yet see — only becomes available in a facilitated conversation.
"The profile is not the finding. It is the provocation. What the client does with it — where they push back, what surprises them, what confirms something they had not quite been able to name — that is the material."
Registered psychologists and psychotherapists may use the suite within their professional practice without additional requirement.
OD consultants, executive coaches, and other practitioners are asked to share a brief note on their theoretical background. Access is matched to the framework the practitioner brings — not gatekept.
The instruments are not for selection, appraisal, or clinical diagnosis. They are for facilitated reflective inquiry in leadership development, coaching, and OD contexts.
08 — Who uses this
Three practitioner communities.
Psychologists & psychotherapists
The ego state and schema constructs map directly onto clinical frameworks already in use. The IAP and RAP extend into leadership and organisational contexts. The PAP, RSP, and PPR sit within therapeutic practice. The CCP adds a systemic dimension — what the organisation is carrying through this person — that most clinical instruments cannot reach.
IAPRAPPAPRSPPPR
Executive coaches
The IAP and RAP together produce a picture of a leader that most 360-degree instruments cannot reach — not just how they are perceived, but how they are psychologically organised. The gap between what the IAP shows and what the Relational Mirror shows is often where the most important coaching work begins.
IAPRAP360SICCP
OD consultants & leadership practitioners
The CFP makes visible what is usually invisible: that communication difficulties in organisations are rarely skill problems. They are cultural field problems. The CCP adds the systemic containment dimension — what the leader is being asked to carry, and whether the containing function is holding. Together they map the gap between the person and the system.
CFPCCPIAP360
09 — Where to start
A typical practitioner path.
Ten instruments can feel like a large landscape. Most practitioners begin with two or three and build from there as the work deepens. This is the most common entry sequence.
1
IAP Inner Authority Profile
The primary opening instrument. Ego state organisation across six dimensions. Establishes the baseline picture of how authority is currently held.
2
RAP Relational Authority Profile
Adds the belief schema layer — the twelve cognitive patterns shaping how professional authority is held, sought, and given away.
3
360 IAP Relational Mirror
The relational picture. How colleagues experience the leader across the same dimensions — anonymously. The gap between self-report and relational composite is usually where the work begins.
+
Then, depending on the work
CFPfor systemic and communication work
SIwhen shadow material is emerging
CCPfor advanced systemic containment work
PAPwhen personal and professional contexts are both in scope
The CCP in practice
What the CCP makes visible.
A senior leader in financial services. Strong IAP scores — high Adult function, moderate Nurturing Parent, relatively low Critical Parent. Presents as calm, measured, thoughtful. Colleagues experience her consistently well. The coaching engagement is progressing but something isn't moving.
The CCP reveals a characteristic pattern in the ambiguity and loss quadrants: under sustained not-knowing, her containing function contracts. She becomes more decisive, not less — cutting through ambiguity with direction rather than tolerating it. The system experiences this as certainty. What it is actually experiencing is anxiety being managed through action rather than metabolised through thinking.
The CCP doesn't diagnose this. It names a pattern. The facilitated conversation that follows — about what the system had been carrying, what her characteristic move under pressure actually produces — is where the work becomes possible. Three sessions later, she describes it as the most useful thing she has done in fifteen years of leadership development.
"The CCP is most useful when the practitioner already has a picture of the person's inner organisation. What it adds is the systemic dimension: not how the person is organised internally, but what the people around them are carrying as a result."
Ready to begin?
Register as a practitioner and send your first instrument within minutes. No setup fee. Credits are used only when you send an instrument.