Measuring Success in Leadership (ProLead)

Using a clear methodology to measure success and developing leaders

The age old argument goes something like this:  Are leaders born or are they made?  If you’ve been in the world of leadership for any length of time, you have without doubt formed an opinion.  As with most things in life there is seldom a black or white answer for such a complex question.  We select, train, develop, nurture and encourage leaders and yet seem to be in awe of some people in leadership who display an innate ability to enlist followers around them.  These born leaders seem to be able to see around corners, instinctively do the right things, and can stand by themselves when weaker managers conform or collapse under pressure from conflicting and, many times, bad ideas.  Following a number of observations and given some experience, you can get really good at predicting people who can lead others and those people who cannot. 

Over the years, people like Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (The Leadership Challenge) have worked extensively to qualify and quantify leadership and have provided the foundation for the rest of us to begin to understand the ‘nature or nurture’ of it all.  Even with all of this good work, we sometimes get lured in by the old “smartest kid in the room” syndrome.  We can equate personal skill level (lots of knowledge or ability) in place of real (people who gather and keep followership) leaders.  It is not hard to do because we as a species are so drawn to anyone who leads that we will make them up if they don’t present themselves.  We all like good leaders and have been impacted negatively by poor leaders. 

A while back we began to examine leadership from eight key characteristics and their respective skills and behaviors within each.  We went further and are asking people to self-assess regarding their skills and behaviors in each characteristic and then to have their bosses assess them in those same skills and behaviors.  What we achieved was a comprehensive process of measuring 40 skills and 40 behaviors while moving leaders to encourage and coach subordinates to achieve success together.  We called it ProLead.   

Five Steps to Success…here is how it works:

1. A coach or facilitator works with both subordinate and leader to describe the process and gain understanding of the meaning of the skills and behaviors.
2. Subordinate and leader both assess the 40 skills and 40 behaviors of the subordinate, using the scale provided.
3. The subordinate and their leader meet with the coach to create key areas of success and future growth.
4. A plan is created by the subordinate and coach to achieve some easy goals (first small steps).
5. Those easy steps are achieved by the subordinate and documented.
6. The two parties meet again and continue building plans together until success has been seen, measured and reinforced.

What does it look like?
We have attached a PDF for you to look at.