How to Introduce the DPI in 30 Seconds

The Diamond Power Index® isn’t easy to introduce in a sentence.While it measures something very real and very consequential — how authority and influence actually operate in a leader’s world — the words used to describe it (“power,” “360,” “assessment”) closes doors before the conversation gets started. Add to that the fact that different clients come to this work with very different presenting problems, and there’s no single way to describe it that works for everyone.

The framings below are designed to help you. Each one is a sort of “elevator pitch,” and it speaks to a different need your client might be experiencing — influence, conflict, engagement, safety, culture, or simply wanting to go deeper as a leader. They’re different doors into the same room. Use whichever one fits your client’s needs, and customize it to suit your and your client’s situation, culture, and style. 

Trouble with influence — managing up, across, or laterally

The DPI looks at how your authority and influence actually land with the people around you — not just what you intend, but what they experience. If you’re finding it hard to move things forward, get buy-in, or get traction with peers and senior stakeholders, this gives you a precise picture of where the gap is and what’s driving it.

Conflict and power dynamics 

When there’s ongoing friction — with a peer, a team, a stakeholder — power is almost always a factor, even when it isn’t named. Perceptions of rank, control over resources, who sets the agenda, whose norms prevail — these are some of the power dynamics that drive conflict and keep it alive. The DPI maps how authority and influence are operating in those relationships, including how your own use of influence might be landing differently than you think, and gives you a specific place to work from.

Lack of engagement, initiative, or buy-in from the team 

If you’re seeing low initiative, disengagement, or people waiting to be told what to do, that often traces back to how authority is functioning in the team. The DPI surfaces how your presence and use of power are shaping what others feel able to do — including what you might be unintentionally signaling. It also gives you a concrete understanding of the different kinds of power available to you, and how to use them deliberately to produce the outcomes and energy you actually want from your team. 

Psychological safety concerns 

Psychological safety is directly shaped by how authority is used day to day. It arises through a combination of things: whether people feel genuinely empowered, whether the environment feels civil and safe, whether processes and treatment feel fair, and whether leaders are experienced as approachable. These are specific, measurable dimensions of how power operates, and they’re exactly what the DPI maps. It shows how people are actually experiencing your influence and what it enables or forecloses for them, surfacing things that rarely come up in a standard feedback conversation. 

Culture change and development

Every organization has a culture — the question is whether it’s the one you’re intentionally building. Culture is shaped in the everyday moments of leadership: who gets heard, how conflict is handled, whether people feel safe to speak up. Patterns of behavior accumulate and without attention they drift toward whatever behaviors go unchallenged. Because culture is ultimately downstream of how authority gets used, the DPI gives culture change work a specific, behavioral place to start. 

Exclusion, unfairness, and belonging 

When people are experiencing being sidelined, overlooked, or treated differently, whether it’s overt or subtle, there’s almost always a power dynamic at the center of it. The DPI maps how authority and influence are being used in those relationships, including what gets reinforced or ignored by the people with the most power in the room. It can give both leaders and organizations a clearer picture of what’s actually happening and a concrete path toward more equitable use of influence and authority. 

High performer, no obvious problem — “why do I need this?” 

The DPI is less about fixing something broken and more about understanding your full range — where your authority is well-calibrated, where it’s underused, and where it might be creating drag you can’t see from inside it. The very things that make a strong performer effective can make certain blind spots harder to spot; success creates its own confirmation, and feedback that might challenge it tends to be softened. This is the kind of tool that can be most useful for people who are already executing well and want to make sure nothing underneath is working against them.