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This next exercise will measure “contribution” of your leaders.

For each person on the two lists you have (see earlier post), ask the following three questions:

• What percentage of their output is due to explicit instructions or orders? Meaning, you asked them to do something, and they did it.
• What percentage of their output is are things they did over and above what they were asked to do? Meaning, not only did they do what you asked them to do, but they did more, and with flair and creativity.
• What percentage of their output is incremental? Meaning, the output is something that would not have happened without their involvement.

This is a measure of “output” not talent or potential. It is not a measure of skill, much of what they achieved could be pure luck.

Thus, an additional measure is “consistency” and “repeat ability.” Award or take away points based on whether they can produce the outputs again, with the same quality. There is nothing “good”or “bad” about this, it is a matter of what is expected of each individual. The expectation is different for junior and senior people.

Now review the two lists and move names from one to the other based on your new insights. Before you present your findings, be sure to apply this metric to yourself.

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If you’ve acted upon the previous post, you now have a list of reasons why you decided some of your folks are leaders and others are not.

Divide your list of reasons into two sets: one set of reasons are are “task oriented,” meaning, they relate to getting things done such as, meeting business goals, making money, keeping customers happy, problem solving, and trouble shooting. The second set of reasons relate to “relationships,” meaning, display of emotional and social intelligence in the workplace.

Review the list of reasons, refine, polish, and reword your phrases. Consult the dictionary and thesaurus. Argue about it with your colleagues, come up with a list that everyone can agree upon. It is okay if the “big cheese” makes a call on what the list should be, it only indicates that leadership needs to be shown in the context of that person’s opinion. It probably reflects what is going on in the workplace anyway.

Conflict and a lack of consensus is not a bad thing. Convert it to a team building opportunity. Increase everyone’s awareness and help them deal with their embarrassments.

After you have analyzed the list of reasons, go back and refine the list of names, move them from one category to another if necessary.