- Are you an effective leader? How do you know?
- Do you want people to support you and your business because they want to or because they have to?
- What method do you use to evaluate your own leadership skills?
Ask yourself these 8 questions
These eight sets of questions will help you determine the quality of your leadership.
Take the time to deeply contemplate these questions and then answer as honestly as you are able. Your own responses will tell you more about your leadership style, effectiveness, and behaviours than any set definition of leadership.
- Are the team and the company better off because of my leadership? How do I know?
- Do I communicate clearly the business plan/goals to all team members, as well as how each person’s job contributes to it? How do I do this?
- Do I provide the right tools and resources and remove obstacles for my team to do their jobs well? Do I know what they need and where the obstacles are?
- Do I create an organisational culture for my team to do their best work? What else could I do? Have I asked them?
- Do those I lead trust that I have their backs, or do they believe I am just in it for me? How do I really know?
- Do I transfer learning and knowledge to my team? What data or information do I use to substantiate my answer?
- Do I provide meaningful feedback in a timely manner to my team? How? Is my feedback specific to position descriptions, performance goals, and business strategy?
- What permissions do I give those I lead to challenge me and give me feedback, or does feedback only go in one direction (from me to them)? Do I learn from my team what I need to keep doing, start doing, or stop doing? How do I collect this information?
Step it up! Use these questions as a 360-feedback tool, and let others evaluate your leadership through these questions.
You could take this assessment yourself and use it as a 360-degree feedback assessment by providing your team the opportunity to evaluate your leadership effectiveness for themselves. If you do use it as a 360 tool, modify the questions from first person to third person and be sure to allow others to answer anonymously and voluntarily so they will be as truthful as possible.
360-Feedback Can Be Confronting
As you receive and interpret the results of such a 360 assessment, you will have to prepare yourself for what you might get back. Put aside personal objections to the information you may receive. Be open to receiving the results (positive and negative) and resist the temptation to denounce the findings. Even if you don’t agree with something that is reported, try to understand the responses by trying to see it from the respondent’s perspective.
And, if you do make it anonymous, do not make any effort to learn which individuals gave which responses, and do not retaliate against or confront any team member for contributing to the process. Each person has his/her own experience with you. Your goal is to learn how people experience you and if you are adding value and where – helping you to be a better business leader.
Written by Claire Harrison, Author of The CEO Secret Guide to Managing and Motivating Employees, and Managing Director of Harrison Human Resources™.
