One of the most difficult aspects of leadership is to know how you’re doing as a leader.
Add a little insecurity into the mix, and it makes things even more complex.
Naturally, you’ll get feedback from your peers and probably get an occassional 360 review (both great practices).
But beyond that, how can you tell how you’re doing as a leader?
There’s a way to check that’s much simpler than you might think. By asking yourself three simple questions, you can not only get an accurate gauge of how you’re doing, but where you need to improve.
Why this matters (leadership and self-delusion).
I find a lot of leaders are not clear on how well they’re leading.
This falls into two categories:
Leaders who overestimate how well they’re doing.
Leaders who underestimate how well they’re doing.
Both are problematic for different reasons.
If you think you’re doing better than you are, you’re the last person to realize you need to improve.
And if you think you’re not doing as well as you actually are, then you likely have potential you have not yet tapped into.
So getting a reasonably accurate check-in on the quality of your leadership is critical to help you lead with all diligence.
3 easy ways to check your leadership effectiveness.
The following three questions form three quick shoulder-checks you can do.
As with all self-assessment, there are limits on how accurate it will be. But my guess is, as you work through these questions in the next few minutes, you’ll know a lot more about your leadership than you might predict.
And, lastly, a quick note. This post (like almost all posts on this blog) assumes you want to lead better now and steward the leadership gift that God has given you. If you don’t, you’ll push back against these questions. I get that. But if you care about leadership, as difficult as the answers to these questions might be, you will want to answer and act.
So, to gauge your leadership, as honestly as you can, answer these three questions:
