It’s often difficult to gauge whether your leadership practices are helping improve your team’s situation. I encourage leaders to look for these signs as evidence that things are heading in the proper direction:
The Seven Indicators of the Effective Work Environment
- Individuals and teams display a great deal of pride, collaboration and cooperation to meet and exceed objectives.
- Failure to meet or exceed objectives is met with healthy frustration that quickly is channeled into lessons-learned and “what we’ll do better” discussions.
- Regardless of individual roles, teams spontaneously assemble to meet specific challenges and then dissolve once the challenges have been met.
- The group becomes self-policing on quality, timeliness and conduct.
- The drive to innovate and create value comes from within the team not from management.
- The teams learn how to fight and to play together.
- Output tangibly supports strategic objectives and improves the ability of the organization to meet customer needs.
While there is a great deal of subjectivity in judging the Seven Indicators, I’m OK with a little, “you’ll know it when you see and feel it or when you don’t” type of measurement. The weatherman can give you all of the meteorological reasons behind the sunny day you see through the window, but until you step outside of your Chicago office in July and feel the humidity swallow you up like a wet blanket, you don’t truly know what it’s like out there.
The best leaders are critically aware of their role and power in shaping the environment on their teams and inside their organizations. They are also aware that almost no one will ever provide the boss honest, actionable feedback on performance. I encourage leaders to develop an extreme awareness of what is going on around them as the best indicator of their effectiveness. Pay attention, look, listen and then ask questions and take actions that help people solve problems.
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