A self-assessment, not a clinical instrument
The Five-Gap Execution Diagnostic is a leadership self-assessment intended for educational and professional-development purposes. It is not a clinical, psychological, medical, or scientifically validated diagnostic instrument.
It exists to give leaders and organizations a structured starting point for examining where resistance may be affecting decisions, relationships, and execution. The five gaps below are the lenses it uses.
Resistance Gap
When resistance appears, the instinct is often to treat it as obstruction before getting curious about what it may be protecting. The Resistance Gap explores whether pushback is being read as defiance rather than information — and what value, boundary, fear, or need may be underneath it.
Internal Sabotage Gap
Under pressure, a protective response can take over before the current moment is evaluated clearly. Eldon sometimes describes this protective response as the Bodyguard. The Internal Sabotage Gap explores where reactions, overload, or withdrawal may be shaping decisions before the leader realizes it.
Evidence Gap
It can be difficult to separate what you know from what you fear, assume, or predict. The Evidence Gap explores whether the story is getting ahead of the evidence — and whether new evidence is being defended against rather than examined.
Relationship Gap
When an important relationship gets stuck, leaders often focus on the decision, role, or agreement more than on how the relationship itself is functioning. The Relationship Gap explores whether the real issue is trust, influence, or how the other person experiences the relationship.
Empathy Gap
Understanding someone's concern intellectually is not the same as making them feel accurately understood. The Empathy Gap explores whether people hear the decision clearly but leave unsure whether their concerns mattered in how it was reached.
What the gaps do together
These gaps rarely appear one at a time. Several can operate at once, and the diagnostic is designed to show where the highest friction is — not to hand you a single label. The point is to see where resistance may be protecting something the current approach has not accounted for.
You can take the diagnostic for your own leadership or for your organization.
Next step