Insight
Login

Two Ways to Measure Effective Leadership

Two factors matter more

Two factors matter more than any others in developing high performing teams and organisations.

Firstly, that relationship currency (trust between leaders) is fundamental to making progress. The second is that your leaders need to build confidence in leaning into high value conversations (some of them difficult). 

Without these two factors very little will shift. The second is linked to the first - confidence to speak is to some degree, underpinned by trust. That means developing psychological safety. Psychological safety is a shared belief  that it’s OK to take risks, to express  ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes - all without fear of negative consequences.

Trust

Trust is an experienced based decision. It's widely recognised that trust is the most important ingredient within high performing teams. That's not new information, but consider what it actually takes to develop and maintain trust.

If we all went about our work actively building 'trust accounts' with each other, what would improve with our various interactions? What might we have to re-visit and repair to build trust? How might communicating from solid ground accelerate progress?

Trust comes with time, truth telling, honest feedback, apologies, sharing, delivering, and above all else, being there for each other. It's a dynamic and ongoing commitment that benefits from some help and encouragement.

Confidence

Confidence is often the missing and most important factor in executive development.

While knowledge building is important, it is meaningless in an organisation context, without application. If leaders don't lean in, nothing changes.

We need to get a lot more focused on knowledge translating into doing (the know do gap). That's where coaching can make a positive impact.

Leaders are paid to make things happen, often through people. Increasingly what I am most interested in is helping leaders figure out is:

  • What they need to do
  • What conversations are required to do it
  • How to have those conversations
  • Helping them lean in 

Measure these two metrics

Measuring positive shifts in trust between leaders and their confidence to lean into high value conversations, are very useful and useable metrics. At the very least, a focus on these two factors would lead to better experiences and better results.

What difference might that make in your organisation? Are you curious about how you might measure it? I'd love to explore that with you - get in touch...
Let's talk