Tilt365 Agility Growth Tracker vs. Hogan Leadership Forecast Series: A Side-by-Side Comparison

Overview

This blog compares the Tilt365 Agility Growth Tracker (AGT) with the Hogan Leadership Forecast Series (LFS), drawing from internal Tilt365 knowledge base materials, published research on both tools, and Tilt365’s own validation study comparing the True Tilt Personality Profile to the Hogan Developmental Survey.

At a Glance

Theoretical Foundations

Tilt365 Agility Growth Tracker

The AGT is grounded in character science and the psychology of conscious leadership. Its design principle is that real feedback reflects underlying identity patterns that can be measured scientifically and evolved intentionally. The framework maps how identity and character manifest in behavior and how those behaviors can flex across situations.

The AGT measures 12 character strengths organized into 4 meta-strength quadrants:

• Courage (Impact quadrant): Confidence (Champion), Boldness (Explorer), Integrity (Guardian)
• Resilience (Resilience quadrant): Openness (Ideator), Inspiration (Visionary), Creativity (Inventor)
• Humanity (Connection quadrant): Likability (Entertainer), Empathy (Humanitarian), Trust (Counselor)
• Wisdom (Wisdom quadrant): Perspective (Investigator), Focus (Scholar), Diligence (Architect)

These 12 strengths pair into 6 Polarities of Generativity (Learning, Vision, Strategy, Authority, Momentum, Diplomacy), where balanced expression produces team-level thriving.

A core assumption is that people can and do change—rooted in neuroplasticity research—and that the most effective way to change how others perceive you is to evolve your internal identity narratives.

Hogan Leadership Forecast Series

The Hogan LFS is based on three validated instruments:

1. Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) — 7 scales measuring “bright side” personality: Adjustment, Ambition, Sociability, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Prudence, Inquisitive, Learning Approach. Based on the Five-Factor Model.
2. Hogan Development Survey (HDS) — 11 scales measuring “dark side” derailers that surface under stress: Excitable, Skeptical, Cautious, Reserved, Leisurely, Bold, Mischievous, Colorful, Imaginative, Diligent, Dutiful.
3. Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) — 10 scales measuring core values and motivators: Recognition, Power, Hedonism, Altruistic, Affiliation, Tradition, Security, Commerce, Aesthetics, Science.

The Hogan framework is built on socioanalytic theory and emphasizes how personality predicts workplace performance. Results are norm-referenced against a large global database.

How They Handle “Derailers”

Both assessments address the concept that strengths, when overused, become liabilities. However, the AGT provides a significantly more thorough and actionable approach to predicting and preventing derailment.

Tilt365 AGT — A More Comprehensive Derailment Model

The AGT’s approach to derailment is rooted in Aristotle’s Golden Mean—the principle that virtue lies in the balanced expression of a trait, and that any strength taken to an extreme becomes a liability. This philosophical foundation, combined with over three decades of research and psychometric analysis (built on Tilt365’s previous 360 feedback assessment, now replaced by the AGT), produces a derailment model that is both broader and more precise than Hogan’s.

The AGT measures many more traits and strengths that can be overused than the Hogan HDS. Each of the 12 character strengths has a healthy expression and an overuse pattern—and these are further organized into 6 Polarities of Generativity, where imbalance in any polarity creates predictable derailment risk. This means the AGT captures derailment not just as isolated dark-side tendencies, but as a systemic pattern of imbalance across the full spectrum of character.

The AGT uses a 5-point Likert scale for frequency (Never → Very Often). If a person scores 4.0 or higher on primary (balanced) questions for a character strength, a second set of questions measuring overuse is triggered. This adaptive design keeps the assessment short while capturing derailer risk with precision.

The growth path is framed through polarity balance: when one strength in a polarity pair is overused, the remedy is to build 10% more strength on the opposite side. This gives leaders a clear, actionable development pathway—not just a diagnosis, but a prescription.

Hogan HDS — A Narrower, More Clinical Approach

The HDS measures 11 dark-side scales independently, scored on percentiles against a normative sample. Scores at or above the 90th percentile indicate “high risk” for derailment. The 11 derailers are distinct constructs, each with specific behavioral descriptions.

The HDS is descriptive and diagnostic—it identifies which derailers a person is prone to and at what intensity. Development recommendations are provided in the Coaching Report. However, the model treats derailers as relatively fixed personality risks rather than as overused strengths that can be rebalanced through intentional growth.

Direct Research Connection

Tilt365 conducted a validation study (N=236) comparing True Tilt Personality Profile patterns to HDS derailer scores, finding statistically significant relationships:

• Structure Tilt → Higher scores on Skeptical, Reserved, and Diligent
• Clarity Tilt → Higher scores on Cautious and Dutiful
• Impact Tilt → Higher scores on Bold, Mischievous, and Imaginative
• Connection Tilt → Higher scores on Imaginative

This cross-validation demonstrates that the Tilt model’s overuse patterns map meaningfully onto Hogan’s derailer constructs, confirming theoretical alignment between the two systems.

Key Differentiators

1. Designed for Speed and Accuracy

The AGT was intentionally designed for speed and accuracy—two goals that are increasingly in tension in today’s assessment landscape. Attention spans have grown shorter and shorter, and this trend poses a real threat to the reliability and validity of traditional lengthy assessments. “Careless answering”—where participants rush, disengage, or click through without reading—is a well-documented problem in psychometric research, and it directly undermines the accuracy of results. The longer the assessment, the greater the risk.

The AGT solves this by being efficient by design. The entire assessment takes 15 minutes or less to complete. Its adaptive question structure triggers overuse questions only when warranted, keeping the experience focused and reducing fatigue. The result is that participants remain engaged throughout, producing data that is more reliable precisely because the instrument respects their time and cognitive bandwidth.

The Hogan LFS requires approximately 60 minutes—four times longer—across three separate instruments, producing reports that often run 54–90 pages. While the depth of data is substantial, the length of the experience increases exposure to careless answering—a risk that can quietly erode the very reliability and validity the instrument was designed to deliver. The reports also require expert interpretation, adding time and cost before insights reach the leader.

2. Memorability and Holistic Framework

The AGT presents results within a single integrated visual framework—a circular graph showing all 12 character strengths, 4 meta-strengths, 4 Tilt patterns, and 6 polarities. This holistic model creates a memorable mental map that leaders can recall in real-time situations.

Hogan reports across three separate instruments (HPI, HDS, MVPI) with 28 total scales. The richness of data is a strength for deep clinical interpretation, but the fragmented presentation across multiple reports can make it harder for leaders to retain and apply insights without ongoing coaching support.

3. Growth Tracking Over Time — Built Into the Business Model

The AGT is not only designed for repeated use—the business model itself encourages it. Tilt365 assessments are sold as affordable annual subscriptions at $199 per year per leader, which include unlimited free retakes throughout the subscription period. This means that as leaders engage in intentional development, they can retake the AGT to see how their character strengths, overuse patterns, and polarity balance have shifted. The Change Monitor feature tracks these shifts over time, providing longitudinal evidence of real growth.

This subscription approach aligns the economics with the psychology: because retakes are free and encouraged, leaders are more likely to stay engaged with their development journey rather than treating the assessment as a one-time event that gets filed away. Practitioner certification is $1,999—a straightforward investment that unlocks the full suite.

Hogan assessments are premium-priced, per-administration instruments. The full Leadership Forecast Series package with a coaching debrief runs approximately $1,650 per person—for a single administration. Retaking requires repurchasing, which creates a financial disincentive to track growth over time. Hogan certification starts at $2,900 for the base workshop, and can reach $5,200 when adding Advanced Interpretation and Advanced Feedback courses. The underlying assumption mirrors the pricing: personality traits are relatively stable, so one administration should suffice. And because Hogan does not explain why patterns exist, leaders are left with a static portrait and no built-in mechanism to measure whether their development efforts are working.

3a. Certification Cost Comparison

Before a practitioner can even begin using either tool, certification is required—and the cost difference is significant.

Tilt365 certification costs $1,999. This provides full practitioner credentialing to administer and debrief the entire Tilt365 assessment suite, along with access to the Practitioner Learning Community for ongoing skill development.

Hogan base certification costs $2,900—more than double the Tilt365 investment—and only covers foundational interpretation of the three core instruments. Practitioners who want deeper skills must purchase additional advanced workshops: Advanced Interpretation or Advanced Feedback at $1,750 each, bringing the total to $4,050–$5,200 for a fully trained Hogan practitioner. And this expense is per person—every coach, consultant, or HR professional who needs to use the tools must be individually certified.

When combined with the per-administration assessment costs and the fact that Hogan does not include free retakes, the total cost of ownership for a Hogan-based leadership program can be several times higher than a comparable Tilt365 program—while delivering a one-time snapshot rather than an ongoing growth journey.

4. Psychological Safety

The AGT uses a self-assessment model that invites curiosity and self-reflection. Because it doesn’t rely on others’ judgments, it eliminates projection bias, halo effects, and the ego-fear response that traditional feedback and some assessment processes can trigger.

Hogan assessments, particularly when used for selection, can evoke a sense of being evaluated. The “dark side” framing of the HDS, while psychologically accurate, can trigger defensiveness if not carefully debriefed by a skilled practitioner.

5. Language That Leaders Actually Use

One of the most significant practical differences between the two tools is the language they employ.

Hogan relies on clinical and academic psychological terminology that can feel obscure, dated, and unrelatable in a modern work environment. Scale names like Hedonism, Prudence, Dutiful, Mischievous, and Leisurely come from academic personality research traditions and often require extensive explanation before a leader can connect them to their actual workplace behavior. This creates a translation gap between assessment results and day-to-day application.

The AGT uses elegant, timeless, and immediately relatable language—terms like Courage, Resilience, Humanity, Wisdom, Confidence, Boldness, Integrity, Empathy, and Trust. These words resonate with leaders across industries, generations, and cultures without needing a glossary. A leader who learns they need to balance Confidence with Empathy can apply that insight in their next meeting. A leader told they scored high on “Leisurely” or “Hedonism” has to first decode what that means before they can act on it.

This isn’t a cosmetic distinction. Language determines whether an assessment gets used. If leaders can’t remember and relate to the terms, the insights stay locked in a report instead of showing up in real behavior. The AGT’s language was deliberately chosen to be memorable, aspirational, and applicable—ensuring that assessment insights translate into lasting behavioral change in the workplace.

6. Primary Use Case

The AGT is purpose-built for leadership assessment and development. As an assessment, it provides a comprehensive picture of a leader’s character strengths, overuse risks, and polarity balance—making it a rigorous tool for evaluating leadership readiness and values-culture fit. As a development tool, its growth-oriented design, Change Monitor, and retake capability make it uniquely powerful for ongoing coaching and leadership programs. This dual capability in a single instrument is a significant advantage over tools that separate assessment from development.

The Hogan LFS is frequently used for both selection and development. Its normative scoring and predictive validity make it well-suited for talent decisions, succession planning, and high-potential identification. However, its framework was designed for an era that valued trait stability and prediction over adaptability and growth—a mismatch with the agile leadership demands of today’s organizations.

8. Going Beyond “What” to “Why”

One of the most significant advantages of the Tilt365 suite is that it goes a critical step further than simply assessing and reporting behavioral patterns. Most assessments, including Hogan, tell leaders what their tendencies are. Tilt365 is designed for intelligent, curious leaders who want to know why they do what they do.

Understanding the why behind a pattern—the identity narratives, the character imbalances, the protective strategies that drive behavior—is what makes conscious change possible. Without that insight, leaders are left with a description of their tendencies but no lever for transformation. The AGT’s character science framework illuminates the underlying architecture of behavior, giving leaders genuine agency over their growth. This is what offers hope for change: not just a mirror, but a map.

Hogan’s reports describe personality traits and derailer risks in detail, but the framework is fundamentally descriptive. It tells leaders what they tend to do and what might go wrong under stress. The why—the deeper identity dynamics that produce those patterns—is left for the coach or the leader to figure out on their own.

9. No Typing, No Self-Limiting Beliefs

Tilt365 assessments are deliberately designed to avoid profiling people into fixed types. Many popular assessments—and to some degree, Hogan’s percentile-based scoring against normative populations—can inadvertently create self-limiting beliefs. When a leader is told “you are a Type X” or “you scored in the 95th percentile on Bold,” there is a natural human tendency to internalize that label as a fixed identity. This can actually reinforce the very patterns the assessment was meant to develop.

The AGT treats every person as a dynamic, evolving individual with a unique configuration of character strengths that can shift over time. Leaders are not boxed into a type—they are shown a living picture of their current balance, with a clear pathway to grow. This philosophy is foundational to the entire Tilt365 suite: assessments should expand a leader’s sense of possibility, never narrow it.

Where Each Excels

Tilt365 AGT is stronger for:

• More thorough derailment prediction — measures overuse risk across every character strength, not just 11 isolated dark-side traits
• Reveals the why behind behavior — designed for curious leaders who want to understand the deeper drivers of their patterns, not just a description of them
• No typing or profiling — treats leaders as dynamic individuals, avoiding the self-limiting beliefs that fixed-type assessments can create
• Ongoing leadership assessment and development programs
• Building self-awareness and character growth over time
• Team-level culture and agility development
• Reducing ego-fear and increasing psychological safety
• Relatable, memorable language that leaders can apply immediately without a clinical glossary
• Affordable annual subscription ($199/year) with free retakes — versus Hogan’s ~$1,650 per one-time administration
• Quick deployment with minimal administrative burden
• Aligned with the modern demand for agile and generative leaders — built for today’s VUCA environment where adaptability, character balance, and growth orientation are essential
• Environments that value a growth mindset and neuroplasticity
• Modern digital-first assessment experience
• 3+ decades of psychometric validation grounded in Aristotle’s Golden Mean

Hogan LFS is stronger for:

• Executive selection and succession planning
• Deep diagnostic profiling with norm-referenced data
• Organizations that need assessment data for talent decisions
• Situations requiring the credibility of 400+ validation studies
• Detailed, multi-dimensional personality mapping

The Bottom Line

These are fundamentally different tools designed for different primary purposes. Hogan brought rigor and predictive science to personality assessment in leadership—its contribution to the field is significant. The Tilt365 Agility Growth Tracker represents the next evolution: a tool designed from the ground up for how adults actually learn and grow, grounded in character science and the conviction that leaders can change from the inside out.

Organizations seeking a diagnostic, evaluative tool for selection and deep personality profiling will find Hogan’s depth and normative rigor valuable. Organizations seeking a leadership assessment that goes beyond what leaders do to reveal why they do it—without boxing them into fixed types—will find the AGT more powerful, more memorable, and more likely to produce lasting change. The AGT doesn’t just describe a leader’s patterns; it offers hope and a clear pathway to evolve them.

For organizations that use both, Tilt365’s validation research provides a bridge: leaders who know their Tilt pattern can anticipate which Hogan derailers they’re most prone to, and vice versa—creating a richer developmental picture than either tool alone.

View the full comparison page at https://www.tilt365.com/hogan

Sources: Tilt365 internal knowledge base documents, AGT Report documentation, True Tilt–Hogan Developmental Survey validation study (N=236), Hogan Assessments product documentation, and published research on both frameworks.