I am often asked how to evaluate leaders. My answer is always, "It depends."

There are numerous ways that organizations try to determine objectively the effectiveness of leaders, among them:

* Establishing competencies and rating leaders according to them

* Developing and implementing a 360-degree feedback system

* Creating a set of criteria, such as profitability, growth, customer satisfaction, and retention, and rating the leaders on themAll of these have value.

But none of them gets to the heart of the matter in evaluating a leader.

The essence of leader evaluation is captured in the question:

* Have you (the leader) planned and successfully implemented a change in the business that provides meaningful and substantive value to key stakeholders?

As you can readily see, this criterion is fraught with ambiguity; thus the earlier comment, "It depends."

It depends on several things, including: What change; Which stakeholders; What is meaningful and valuable; What does successfully implement mean; and, Has the change been consciously planned and implemented?

The ambiguity inherent in the question often leads to leaders making assumptions or misreading the situation in ways that undermine their efforts to be effective and damage their career prospects. Here are a few examples of leaders who did just that, to their detriment:

John was brought into the organization because of his experience and success in driving sales growth, something that both the Board of Directors and the new CEO determined needed to be improved, as sales had been relatively flat for several years. He came in with his own ideas and his own way of doing things. Unfortunately, one of his ways of doing things was to run rough-shod over the sales force and business unit leaders, demeaning their previous efforts, criticizing their attempts to improve, and completely revising the sales tracking and planning methodology on his own.

He was let go after less than a year. His take-no-prisoners, do-it-my-way approach flew in the face of the firm's culture of collaboration.

Jackie had been in the business since graduating from college, understood her company's culture, and was finally given the promotion that provided the platform for making the changes that she and many of her colleagues had long believed needed to be made. She set out creating the kind of business unit she had always dreamed of working in, one that was innovative, customer-focused, and agile. Her Waterloo arrived at year-end when her sales and profitability numbers lagged far behind those of her peers.

She was asked to take another job, one that had no line responsibility. Her efforts to establish a better workplace dominated her attention and caused her to lose sight of the basic financial business metrics.

John and Jackie misread the situations in which they operated. They failed to take the time to fill in the blanks and investigate and answer the key question as to what change or changes the key stakeholders really wanted.

How are you evaluated now? Have you taken the time to investigate the answer to the key question (What change or changes do key stakeholders want?) in order to operate with less ambiguity and more clarity? What else can you do, right now, to help clarify what is expected of you?

You'll know if you're on the right track if, when someone asks you how you measure your effectiveness in your current position, you can say "It depends on - " And you proceed to list the criteria which are exactly the same as those of the key stakeholders, especially the stakeholders who play the largest role in determining your future in the business.

Oscar Wilde said, "I have but the simplest taste. I am always satisfied with the best."

Leaders have the responsibility for helping others to strive to do their best. What have you done to ensure that your staff is doing its best? What else might you do?

Martin Luther King said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

The same applies to leaders. Far too many leaders have chosen the easy or convenient way out instead of taking a courageous stand and bearing up under the assault that inevitably ensues.

What challenges or controversies lie ahead? What will it take for you to take the courageous stand required? Are you ready to do so?

Email archie@archietinelli.com