How Would You Like Your Leadership to Be Evaluated?

When you ask people what they think about the contributions of those charged with leadership, often the comments are distilled down to a few observations, labels, or comments like these:

“He’s a control freak!”

“They are a real people person and it is obvious that they care about each team member.”

“She never thinks things through … ideas pop into her head and BOOM off we go in another direction.”

“He’s always prepared and thorough. When he makes a decision, you know he’s consulted, done his homework, and has a plan to make it happen.”

“I’ve never seen anyone better at sharing the credit and making team members feel good about their contributions. We all feel genuinely appreciated.”

And yet, leadership involves countless actions (or inactions) and decisions (or indecisions) over time. These ultimately shape how a leader is perceived by those they lead.

How Do We Measure Leadership?

Often, conversations about leadership begin with a list of desirable traits, goals, or actions, centring around a leader’s guiding principles and the belief that every leader must possess these guiding principles to be successful.  

This perspective is useful, but I wonder if we fundamentally miss what leadership is all about when the conversations begin and end with OUR reflections and subsequent list of “look-fors” and “to-dos”. Think about what many leadership recruitment and selection processes focus on. They tend to focus attention on “What have YOU done to demonstrate leadership”, “What qualities do YOU demonstrate as a leader”, and “How would YOU address this leadership challenge”. Rarely do these processes focus attention on the experiences of the people you are being asked to lead.

The measure of our leadership isn’t ascertained by assessing our checklist of leadership traits and actions.

I wonder if talking to the people we are leading is a better place to begin our reflections about leadership. The measure of our leadership isn’t ascertained by assessing our checklist of leadership traits and actions. We are placed into leadership roles to support the successful fulfilment of our organization’s purpose. This cannot happen without the people we lead. The measure of our leadership is deeply connected to how others experience it.

At ACHIEVE, we believe that organizational success is greatly influenced by the ability of leaders to support, nourish, and guide a healthy workplace culture in which employees flourish. The fundamental question to be asked by leaders is, “How do I want to be experienced by the people I lead?” Shouldn’t the answers to this inform, in large measure, our leadership mindset — what we prioritize as the most important leadership tasks and where we will put our emphasis when it comes to leadership skill development?

What Do Employees Want from Their Leader?

If you ask employees what they want from their leaders to be successful and happy in their workplace, they will typically cite a list that looks something like this:

-To know why I am being asked to do what I am doing and where I fit in the big picture
-To understand clearly what success in my job looks like
-To have the necessary time, training, and support required to do good work
-To receive feedback about what I am doing well
-Thoughtful, respectful coaching to know what my next steps are for improvement
-To feel safe, included, and connected to others in the workplace
-To have a voice in decisions that impact my work and workplace experience
-To know that I can trust my leader(s) and that they have my best interests at heart

The real task of leaders is to find out what the people they lead require to be engaged, productive employees who contribute to the organization’s established mission and the productivity and well-being of those around them.

The Importance of Connection

Being truly in touch with the actual workplace experiences and the needs of those you lead is fundamental to being a leader. What opportunities have you taken privately and collectively to connect with your team and to build the conversation when opportunities arise? This could be over coffee, a few minutes before the start of a meeting, during a performance review process, onboarding new employees, or exit interviews with departing employees.

Being truly in touch with the actual workplace experiences and the needs of those you lead is fundamental to being a leader.

Being connected enough to lead a team takes time, focus, dedicated conversation, strong listening skills (as leaders, we tend to like the sound of our own voice), and genuinely showing care. The skills required to do this well are a major focus of our work at ACHIEVE. We start with a passion to inspire and improve lives and a vision for a world where people like where they work. Working backward from that as our starting point, we ask, “What resources, services, training, and support can we offer leaders to assist in making that happen?”

I encourage you, as an aspiring or practicing leader, to do the same. Start with the end goal of creating an inspiring, engaging workplace experience for the people you lead; a workplace they like and will aim to preserve in order to assist in reaching your organization’s mission. Let this workplace vision inform what you believe about leadership. Determine the type of leadership you will provide, and that will guide you on a journey of developing the skills that will allow you to be effective in your role. And know that we’re here to help with that journey!