Research & IP
PWR Score™
PWR Score is ghSMART's framework for evaluating team effectiveness across three dimensions: Priorities, Who, and Relationships (PWR).
24%
of leaders have the right Priorities.
14%
of organizations have the right Who (team) in place.
47%
of leaders have the right Relationships needed to deliver results.
What Drives Leadership Team Effectiveness?
Leadership teams often underperform for reasons that are easy to misdiagnose. Leaders may look first to strategy, market conditions, or organizational structure when the real constraint is closer to home: the team is working on the wrong priorities, the wrong people occupy critical roles, or the relationships needed to execute effectively are not in place. The PWR Score framework helps identify which of these factors is limiting performance and where leaders should focus attention.
Built on decades of leadership research and informed by one of the world’s largest proprietary leadership assessment databases, PWR Score provides a structured, evidence-based approach to understanding team effectiveness.
The PWR Score framework is derived from the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Power Score: Your Formula for Leadership Success by Geoff Smart, Randy Street, and Alan Foster.
What Is PWR Score?
The PWR Framework: Priorities, Who, Relationships
The PWR Score is built around three dimensions:
Priorities (P)
Whether the team is focused on the work that matters most and aligns its time, energy, and resources around those goals.
Who (W)
Whether the right people are in the right roles, with the capabilities and fit required to succeed.
Relationships (R)
Whether the trust, alignment, and collaboration necessary for effective execution exist within the team and among key stakeholders.
These dimensions are interconnected. Weakness in one area can reduce the effectiveness of the others, making it difficult for teams to achieve their full potential.
The PWR Score is intended as a diagnostic framework, not a rating system. Its purpose is to identify the factors limiting team performance and provide leaders with a practical roadmap for improvement.
What Problems Does PWR Score Help Solve?
Organizations use the PWR Score framework to better understand and address challenges such as:
- Leadership team effectiveness
- CEO and executive transitions
- Succession planning
- Alignment around strategic priorities
- Talent and organizational decisions
- Board and investor evaluation of leadership teams
- Team performance during periods of growth, change, or transformation
By isolating whether the primary challenge relates to Priorities, Who, or Relationships, leaders can focus interventions where they are most likely to improve performance.
The Three Dimensions of PWR Score
Priorities (P): Are You Focused on What Matters Most?
Priorities measures whether a leader or team concentrates attention and resources on the highest-value objectives. It reflects whether the organization’s daily actions align with its stated strategy and whether leaders have clarity about what matters most.
Common challenges include:
- Too many competing priorities
- Misalignment across functions
- A gap between strategy and execution
- Resource allocation that does not match stated objectives
Strong performance on Priorities requires disciplined focus and clarity about what deserves attention and what does not.
Who (W): Do You Have the Right People in the Right Roles?
Who evaluates whether a team is built with the capabilities, experience, and role alignment necessary for success.
This dimension reflects principles found in ghSMART’s Who Methodology and SmartAssessment® approach. While those methods evaluate individual leadership talent, the Who dimension evaluates talent quality across the leadership team as a whole.
Common challenges include:
- Key roles filled by individuals who are not the best fit
- Leadership teams inherited without reassessment
- Critical talent decisions delayed or avoided
- Skills gaps that affect execution
Improving the Who dimension often requires both accurate assessment and the willingness to address talent gaps directly.
Relationships (R): Do You Have the Trust and Alignment to Execute?
Relationships measures the quality of the working relationships within the team and among critical stakeholders.
It evaluates factors such as:
- Trust
- Alignment
- Collaboration
- Productive conflict
- Follow-through and accountability
Strong relationships enable teams to move faster, solve problems more effectively, and maintain alignment during periods of pressure or uncertainty. However, strong relationships are most effective when combined with clear priorities and strong talent.
Research Foundation
The PWR Score was introduced in the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Power Score: Your Formula for Leadership Success by Geoff Smart, Randy Street, and Alan Foster.
The framework draws on ghSMART’s broader body of leadership research and assessment work and shares a research foundation with other ghSMART intellectual property, including:
- CEO Genome®
- Who Method
- SmartAssessment®
Together, these frameworks help leaders evaluate both individual leadership capability and team effectiveness.
How the PWR Score Is Applied
The PWR Score framework helps organizations make better decisions about leadership teams during periods of growth, transition, succession, and to accelerate performance.
CEO Succession and Executive Onboarding
Leadership transitions often create uncertainty around priorities, talent, and team dynamics. The PWR Score provides a structured view of the team’s strengths and gaps during critical transition periods.
Top Team Effectiveness
Many organizations use the framework as a foundation for leadership team effectiveness work, helping teams identify barriers to performance and focus improvement efforts where they will have the greatest impact.
Founder-Led and Growth Organizations
Rapid growth often requires leaders to reassess priorities, redesign leadership teams, and strengthen organizational alignment. The framework offers a structured way to identify emerging constraints before they become larger challenges.
Board and Investor Use Cases
Boards and investors use leadership assessments to better understand organizational readiness, succession risk, leadership effectiveness, and execution capability. The PWR Score framework provides a lens for evaluating these dimensions at the team level.