Help

A free account includes:

• The assessment, and your leadership profile: your archetype, the seven bars, and a one-page PDF
• The first paragraph of each dimension's page
• The latest three blog posts and podcast episodes in full, and the titles of the rest
• Download my data, change your email, reminder settings and deleting your account

Full Access adds:

• Your complete Leadership Development Report (seventeen pages) and its PDF
• How you compare, with leaders at your level, in your function and in your organization
• Reflection questions, the book's practices with "I tried this", and your private journal with notes, timeline and search
• 30-day cycles and 90-day reviews
• Every blog post and podcast episode
• The Recommended reading list, with Aaron's notes on the books
• Ask the book, when it opens to subscribers: 100 searches a month
• One free mentor invitation: ask one person to mentor you, or mentor one person, at no extra charge

There are three ways in: buy the book and upload your receipt for a year of Full Access, use a code from your organization or coach, or subscribe. If you have had Full Access before, your report and what you wrote stay yours to read.

Plus adds 300 Ask the book searches a month, early access to new posts, plus members-only posts and episodes, export of your journal, and priority with coaches. Prices are in "What does a subscription cost?".

Every copy of The Best Boss Effect, including pre-orders, includes a year of Full Access. On the home screen or your Profile, tap "I bought the book" and upload a photo or PDF of your receipt or order confirmation. Most are approved within a minute; some take a day for a person to check. If you bought the book after its release, your year starts the day your receipt is approved. If you pre-ordered, you get access as soon as your receipt is approved, and your full year begins on launch day, June 27, 2027, so pre-ordering gives you the most time. One receipt, one year, one account.

Your complete Leadership Development Report (seventeen pages) and its PDF; How you compare, with leaders at your level, in your function and in your organization; reflection questions, the book's practices with "I tried this", and your private journal with notes, timeline and search; 30-day cycles and 90-day reviews; every blog post and podcast episode; the Recommended reading list, with Aaron's notes on the books; Ask the book, when it opens to subscribers (100 searches a month); and one free mentor invitation: ask one person to mentor you, or mentor one person, at no extra charge. Free accounts keep the assessment and your leadership profile with its one-page PDF, the first paragraph of each dimension's page, the latest three posts and episodes in full, Download my data, and account settings. See "What do I get without a subscription?" for both lists side by side.

Standard is $9 a month or $79 a year. Plus is $12 a month or $99 a year and adds a larger Ask the book allowance, early access to new posts, plus members-only posts and episodes, journal export, and priority with coaches. Your price is locked for as long as you stay subscribed.

Yes: $19 a year for two years with a school email or a current enrollment document, then $5 a month for as long as you stay subscribed.

A year of Full Access from the day you completed it, with no code to enter: it's attached when you sign in with the same email. After the year, you can continue at the alumni rate of $5 a month.

Profile, then Referrals and gifts, has your personal link. When someone creates their account through it and becomes a member (subscribes, has their book receipt approved, or joins through a workshop), you get a free month: a credit of one month off your next invoice if you subscribe, otherwise a month of Full Access added to yours. You can earn up to five a year, and we email you both when a month lands. If you have lifetime access or the alumni rate, you can't use a month, so it goes to the person you referred. Your Profile shows who joined through you, what they became, and your months.

When your book receipt is approved, your book year comes with one extra month. Nothing is added at sign-up. The person who referred you is recorded on your account and can't be changed later.

Yes. Profile, then Referrals and gifts, then Give the book: enter the person's email and upload your receipt. The year goes to their account, not yours, and we email them a sign-in link. The receipt can still be used only once. They can also upload a gift order confirmation that names them as their own proof. A gift counts as a referral from you, so you earn a free month when it's approved. Anything we can't match to the person goes to a person on our team to check.

If you want to sign in with a different address from now on, change it yourself: Profile, then Sign-in and security, then Email address. If an assessment you took under another address isn't in your account, write to support@thebestbosseffect.com with both addresses and we'll link them.

Profile, then Sign-in and security, then Email address. Enter the new address and we send a link to your current address and another to the new one. The change happens only after you follow both, and until then you keep signing in with your current address. Your journal, access, coaches and results stay with your account. Stripe's receipts keep going to the address you subscribed with; write to support@thebestbosseffect.com if you want that changed too.

Profile, then Sign-in and security, then Where you're signed in. It lists each phone and computer with when it was last used, and marks the one you're on. Sign out any one of them, or choose Sign out everywhere to end every sign-in, this device included. Signing a device out also turns off its notifications, so you'll sign in again with an email link or code. If you don't recognize a device, sign it out.

Until you sign out, or until 30 days pass without you opening the app on that device. If you're in an organization's mentoring program it's 7 days, or whatever length your organization chose, up to 30. Using the app keeps you signed in; you're never signed out in the middle of using it.

Profile, then Manage subscription. Cancelling stops the next charge; you keep access to the end of the period you've paid for. After that, your full report stays yours; see the next question.

Your full Leadership Development Report, and its PDF, for any assessment you completed while you had Full Access. It stays in the app for as long as you have an account, along with everything you wrote: your journal, cycles, and past reviews, in read-only form. What stops is the ongoing work: adding entries, new 30-day cycles, 90-day reviews, the practices checklist, Ask the book, reading notes, early access, and export. Subscribe again at any time and it all picks up where you left off.

Yes, within 14 days of a charge, no questions asked. Write to support@thebestbosseffect.com. Refunds take a few days to appear on your card.

Profile, then Settings and privacy, then Download my data, then Email me my data. We build a ZIP and email you a link that works for 24 hours; you can ask once a day, on any plan. It holds a readable PDF summary and files for your profile and access, your assessment answers and scores, every report, your journal, cycles and plan, 90-day reviews, and your coach connections with the notes coaches left you. A coach's own private working notes are theirs, so they aren't in it.

Profile, then Delete your account. Deleting starts a 30-day wait rather than removing everything at once: you are signed out everywhere, you drop out of the rosters and lists others see (a coach or mentor, a program, your organization, our team's People list), your results stop counting in any figure, and we send you no email. If you sign in within 30 days, one tap on Restore my account brings it all back. After 30 days it is removed for good: your profile, journal, plan, cycles, reviews, photo, access and coach connections. Your assessment results stay in the research data with nothing that identifies you. Before you confirm, you can download a recovery file. See ‘Can I get my account back after deleting it?’

Yes, two ways. For 30 days after you delete, your account is set aside rather than erased: sign in with the same email and it comes back as it was. After 30 days, everything is removed from our servers, and the only way back is the recovery file you were offered when you deleted. Sign in with the same email, go to Profile, choose ‘Restore from a recovery file,’ and upload it. We check that the file is genuine and was issued to your email, then restore your profile, results, report, journal, cycles, reviews and settings, and a lifetime or book-year access if you had one. Coach and mentor connections, organization membership and subscriptions are not restored; those need the other party or a new subscription. A recovery file works once.

It is a copy of everything the app held about you, sealed so it can’t be altered. We email you a link to download it, the link works for 24 hours, and after that we delete our copy; the file then exists only where you saved it. Save it somewhere private, such as a password manager’s file storage or an encrypted drive. Anyone who has the file and can sign in with your email could restore your account, so treat it like a document with your name on it. It has no expiry, and it still works after the app changes.

Your natural leadership tendencies: the responses you reach for without deliberate adjustment, especially under pressure. It does not rank you against other leaders or measure how good a leader you are. Scores run 1 to 5 on the foundation and each of the six tensions.

The dimension where the book suggests you begin, ranked by distance from the Best Boss ideal. Focus here marks other dimensions where you lean. You can start anywhere; Start here is a suggestion.

They are the chapter-end practices from The Best Boss Effect. The three at the top of each dimension page are chosen for your lean; the full list for that tension is below them. Tap "I tried this" to record what you did and what happened.

Once a year, from your Profile, under How you see yourself now. Your earlier results are kept so you can see both. Defaults move slowly; the History page shows your scores next to what you've actually done, which is the better measure.

On the report hub, tap Download full PDF. Free accounts get the leadership profile PDF; Full Access gets the complete report.

Comparisons need at least five people so nobody can be identified. If you took the assessment on your own, there is no organization to compare with; How you compare shows leaders at your level and in your function instead.

There are three ways to write on a dimension page. Answer the reflection question for your lean (with Full Access; every answer is kept and dated, and you can start a new one any time). Tap "I tried this" on a practice and record what you did and what happened (Full Access). Or write a plain note in Notes, on any plan. Your entries appear in that page's timeline, newest first, and in your Journal timeline on the report. Nobody can read them unless you turn sharing on for a coach or mentor, page by page; your employer never can. Search your journal and the Journal timeline cover all three kinds.

On your report, tap Search your journal. Type words, or narrow by tension, by type (reflection, practice or note) and by dates; results come newest first with your words marked. Tap Open this page to go straight to that entry on its page. Only you can search your journal.

On your report, tap Journal timeline: every entry, newest first, grouped by month, each tagged with its tension and type and dated. Tap Open this page to go to it.

With Plus: Profile, then Export my journal, as PDF or text. Everyone, on any plan, can download all of their data: see "How do I download my data?".

In your Development plan, commit to one tension, one strength, one practice, a person you'll ask "what is it like to be led by me?", and a review date. On that date we remind you, by email and by notification if you've turned them on (Profile, then Notifications), and the app asks what you noticed and what that person said. Then you choose: keep going on this tension, or move on.

Every 90 days, if you've turned it on, the app reads what you've written in your journal and produces a short review in four parts: what you worked on, what your own words show, where it fits or strains against your leans, and a suggested next focus. It is written by an AI model from your entries only; nothing else is sent, and names of other people are removed first. Turn it on or off on your Profile.

Four: your 30-day review on its review date; "Your 90-day review is ready"; a journal nudge after 21 days with no entry (Full Access); and, once, a next step 14 days after you sign up. Profile, then Notifications, then Email reminders turns off the emails; each email also has a link to stop it. The same reminders come as notifications on any device where you've turned those on, so turn off Push notifications there too if you want none.

Profile, then Notifications, then Enable push notifications, and allow it when your phone asks. Use Send a test notification to check. On iPhone and iPad, notifications work only for the app on your Home Screen, so add it first (Share, Add to Home Screen, Add), open it from there, and then enable them; Show me how in Profile walks through it. It's per device, and you can remove a device from the list.

On iPhone, open the app in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, then Add. On Android, tap Install the app and accept. After that it opens like any app, and links in our emails open inside it. On iPhone this is also what lets you turn on notifications.

The app checks for a new version each time you open it and every 30 minutes while it's open. When one is ready, a bar appears at the bottom of the screen: "A new version is ready. Update." Tap Update and the app reloads on the same page, still signed in. You can dismiss the bar and update later; it never reloads on its own, and if you've been typing it asks first. Your saved files and anything you wrote offline are kept.

To check by hand, go to Profile, then App, then Check for updates. It tells you "You're up to date" or offers Update now. If you added the app to your Home Screen and it still looks old, close it completely and open it again, or use Reset this device on the page that appears when the app won't start.

Yes, for most of it. After you sign in, the app keeps a copy of your report and its dimension pages, your journal, plan and reviews, Insights, Podcast, Recommended reading and Help on your device, and refreshes it quietly each time you open the app. With no connection those pages open from the copy, and a note says how old it is. You can keep writing: notes, reflections, practices, your cycle and your reviews are saved on the device and sent when you're back online. Pages that need the server, like coaching, billing and searching Ask the book, say they need a connection. Signing out clears the copy.

You wrote it with no connection. It's safe on your phone or computer and goes to your account by itself when you're back online; the label disappears once it has. If you changed the same entry on another device, the most recent change wins. Deleting an entry needs a connection. If you sign out before it has sent, the app warns you first.

Our status page is status.thebestbosseffect.com. There's a Status link at the bottom of every screen, and our error messages link to it. It lists what's working and anything we're fixing, and we post updates there.

Books the authors keep returning to, organized by the tension they speak to. You'll find it under Insights, and on each dimension page, where a Read section shows the pick of the month and more for that tension. The authors choose what goes on it and add books over time; a new one is marked New. Every book the chapters draw on is kept on the Works cited page, by chapter, with the books they don't recommend. It is part of Full Access: the list, with an Amazon link and Aaron's note on each book, on why to read it and what to take from it. Free accounts don't see it.

Use Send feedback at the bottom of this page or on Profile. Tell us what you were doing and what happened; a screenshot helps. For something not loading, check the status page first. For anything about your data, write to privacy@thebestbosseffect.com.

A place to tell us about a Best Boss moment: one you saw this week or remember from years ago, a boss you had or a boss you are. Write what happened and what it did for the person on the receiving end, then choose how we may use it. The card is always on Home, there's a Stories from the field section on Insights, and you'll be offered it after a 90-day review and on your journal entries ("Turn this into a story"). There's no limit on how many you share.

You choose one each time you share a story:

• Private, for research only: we read it and may draw on it in our research. We never publish it.
• Publish anonymously: we may publish it, lightly edited, shown as Anonymous.
• Publish with my first name: we may publish it, lightly edited, with your first name.

By submitting, you let The Best Boss Effect use your story, lightly edited, in its research, publications, talks and podcast, under the permission you chose. The authors read every story; nothing is published without being read first, and never beyond the permission you chose. Published stories show your first name or Anonymous, and the dimension the authors tagged. A note that you shared a story goes in your journal, never the story itself.

Profile → Your stories lists everything you've shared with its date and status (private, published anonymously, or published with first name), and Withdraw on each. Withdrawing takes a published story down and erases its text. You can also email privacy@thebestbosseffect.com. A story shared from the website can't be matched to you, so to withdraw one, email us the first few words of it.

Your coach can read the pages you choose: your result, reflection answers, practices you tried, notes, cycles, and 90-day reviews. Nothing is shared until you tick the box on the consent screen, and you can narrow it to some dimensions with the share toggle on each page. See exactly what your coach sees: Profile, then Your coach or mentor, then your coach's name, then Show me what they see.

If your coach invited you, accept the email. Otherwise, Profile, then Your coach or mentor, then Connect with a coach, and enter their code or email; they accept from their side. Plus members' requests are listed first.

Profile, then Your coach or mentor, then your coach's name, then End the connection. Their access ends immediately, for everything, past and future. Notes they left you stay on your pages. To share less instead of nothing, switch pages off on the same screen.

No. They can see activity, never content. An organization that ran a workshop sees group figures only, for groups of five or more, never an individual's results or journal, and its leaders can see a list of who belongs (names, emails and how they joined). If you're in a mentoring program, its administrator can also see activity: whether you've accepted, when you were last active, and counts of entries and cycles, as dates and numbers. They never see what you wrote or any of your results. A coach or mentor sees your pages only if you turn sharing on, page by page. Your employer never sees your journal, and sponsors are told that.

Profile, then Your programs, then your organization, then Leave organization. From then on your results no longer count in the organization's figures or comparison, and its leaders are told you left. You keep your access, report, journal, cycles, reviews and any coaches or mentors. If you take the assessment with its code again, or are given a place again, you rejoin.

While you're connected to a coach, your subscription renews at the alumni rate of $5 a month ($8 for Plus). When the connection ends, it returns to the standard rate at your next renewal, with 30 days' notice.

Profile, then Find a coach, lists independent coaches who have chosen to be listed, with the levels, industries, and countries they work with, their location, and their self-reported credentials. Before you can send a request, your Profile needs your level, function, and industry filled in, because many coaches work only with certain ones; the directory shows you the coaches who match. Tap Request to connect; the coach accepts or declines within 14 days, after which the request lapses and you can try another. Coaches marked "Trained in the Best Boss method" have read the book, completed our orientation, and accepted our coach agreement. That tells you they know our process; it is not an assessment of their coaching qualifications or results.

No. Connecting shares your pages with the coach so they can work with you inside the app. Any coaching arrangement, including fees, sessions, and terms, is made directly between you and the coach, outside this platform. We do not process coaching fees. Coaches and facilitators on this platform are independent: The Best Boss Effect does not employ them, verify their qualifications, or review their advice.

Coaches and facilitators on this platform are independent. The Best Boss Effect does not employ them, verify their qualifications, or review their advice. Any coaching arrangement, including fees, is made directly between you and the coach, outside this platform.

End the connection from your Profile; their access stops immediately. Contact the coach directly about any arrangement between you. If a listing in the directory seems inaccurate or inappropriate, use Report listing on their card and we'll review it.

See For coaches on your Profile, or write to support@thebestbosseffect.com. Once you have clients, open one to read the pages they share, leave notes, and log your conversations: see "How do I log a conversation with a client?" and "Can my client see my notes?".

Yes, and it is free. With Full Access you can mentor one person at no charge, or ask one person to mentor you. See "What is Grow with someone?" for the two doors. Once they accept, the mentor reads the pages the mentee chooses to share and can leave notes on those pages. The mentee can narrow what they share or end the connection at any time.

That is all a free mentor gets. Mentoring a second person at the same time, and the tools for a practice (your clients' activity, the group dashboard, a directory listing, book codes, paying for clients' access, private working notes, the orientation badge and the Trained in the Best Boss method badge), need a coach plan: see For coaches on your Profile. Mentoring through a program your organization runs is separate and never counts toward the free one.

Grow with someone is how Full Access members mentor for free. On your Home screen, and on your Profile under Your coach or mentor, you have two doors, and you can use one at a time: you can be in one free mentoring pair at a time. If you already have a pair, Your coach or mentor says so and offers End connection instead.

Mentor someone invites one person to be your mentee. Ask someone to mentor you invites one person to be your mentor. Both send an email with a sentence from you. If the person you invite has no access, they get the assessment and 30 days of Full Access from the day they accept (once per person, ever), so your first conversation happens with the full report in hand.

After 30 days the pair continues as long as at least one of you has Full Access of your own. If neither of you does, the pair ends; what the person wrote stays theirs, and they can subscribe or buy the book to keep working. Mentoring through a program never counts.

On Home, or on your Profile under Your coach or mentor, open Mentor someone. Enter their email and a sentence from you, and send the invitation. They decide whether to accept and what to share; nothing is shared until they do. If they have no access, accepting gives them the assessment and 30 days of Full Access, once per person, so you can talk with their full report in hand. After the 30 days the pair continues because you have Full Access.

When you invite someone, the mentor orientation appears on your Home screen as Start here. It is about 30 minutes and optional: it never stops you reading what your mentee shares.

Open the client from your Coaching page, then Log a conversation: the date, whether you met, called or messaged, and an optional one-line note. Your client sees the date and type, never the private line. It counts as activity for you. Mentors do the same from their mentee's page.

Notes you write to your client are theirs: they read them on their pages and keep them even if the connection ends. Your private working notes, and the line on a logged conversation, are not shared with your client; they're deleted when the connection ends.

Write to support@thebestbosseffect.com. For questions about your data, privacy@thebestbosseffect.com.

Dashboard, then Members. Tap Remove beside their name (you can't remove yourself). From that moment their results leave your organization's figures and comparison. They keep their access, report, journal and coaches. They're emailed, and so are you, and it's recorded. It never deletes anything of theirs.

On Members, tick Show former members: each person's name, how they joined, when they joined and left, and whether they were removed or left on their own. Leaders can't restore anyone. Write to support@thebestbosseffect.com with the person and a reason and we can restore them; they and your leaders are told.

When your organization has a running mentoring program, Members adds a Programs column (the program and the person's role in it, in your organization's word: mentor, mentee, or both) and two filters, Program (including Not in a program) and Role in a program. It shows names and roles only, never anything about what anyone does or writes.

We ask whether your people sign up with work email, personal email, or either, and, for work email, an optional domain such as example.com. If a domain is set and a member changes their address to a different domain, your leaders get one email saying who and from where to where. Nothing changes for them, and membership never depends on an email domain. Ask us if you want it set or changed.

If branding is switched on for your organization, it's at the bottom of the Dashboard overview: upload a PNG or SVG logo under 512 KB, choose one accent color (it must be readable with white text on it), and write a message of up to 280 characters. Nothing shows until we approve it, and we email you either way. Whether it appears beside our name or in place of it depends on your agreement with us.

With Full Access you get one free mentor. On your Home screen, or on your Profile under Your coach or mentor, open Ask someone to mentor you, enter their email, write a sentence about why you are asking, and tick the box that shares your journal pages with them if they accept. They get an email and decide whether to accept; nothing is shared until they do. They read only the pages you share and can leave notes on them, and either of you can end it at any time.

It is one free pair at a time, and the person you ask can be in only one too. If they have no access, accepting gives them the assessment and 30 days of Full Access, once. After 30 days the pair continues as long as at least one of you has Full Access of your own.

A mentor in a mentoring program is separate. If your organization runs a program, it pairs you with a mentor and invites you, you will see it under Your programs on your Profile, and it never counts toward your free pair. For how a program invitation works, see "I was invited to mentor someone. What do I do first?" in this section. A mentor in a program can still mentor one person for free outside it: see "Can I mentor someone outside my program?".

Accept the invitation from the card on Home or from the email. Then take the mentor orientation under Mentoring, about 30 minutes. It is optional, but it shows you what you will and will not see and how to run the first conversation.

Only what they have shared with you, page by page. Your Mentoring page shows a preview of exactly what they have opened.

On your mentee's page, tap Log a conversation, choose the date (today by default) and the type (met, call or message), and add a one-line note if you like. A logged conversation is what the program counts. Your mentee sees the date and type, never the private line.

Activity only: whether your pair is active and when you last logged a conversation. Your Mentoring page shows it to you in the same words. Never your notes, your mentee's journal or anyone's results.

No. Private notes stay with you and are not in your mentee's data download. Notes you write to your mentee are theirs. Private notes are deleted if the connection ends.

No. Sharing is their choice. Ask them in conversation what they would have logged, and keep meeting.

From your mentee's page, End connection. Access ends immediately for both of you. In a program, tell your administrator as well so the pair can be reassigned.

With Full Access you can mentor one person at no charge. Program mentoring never counts toward that limit. More than one needs a coach plan.

It shows you finished the mentor orientation. It is not a credential or a rating, and it does not appear in any directory.

Yes, all of it except the module on your organization's values.