Before You Can Measure It, You have to Define it: What is Leadership?

We’re talking about measuring leadership here at Horizon Point this month.  In an increasingly prove-it-to-me through data world, one of the things that we don’t do a good job of measuring, and I wonder if we ever really will, is leadership.   It’s so complex.

I think part of the reason we have trouble measuring it is because we have trouble defining it. What is leadership? What is great leadership?

Most people will tell you that leadership is some form of influence.  It’s getting work done through others. True, but what do we want to accomplish because leadership is at work?

Here at Horizon Point, we define the crutch of leadership as “Leaders make more leaders.”  It is both the definition and the measurement all in one.

But how do you measure leaders making more leaders?   Leave it Kris Dunn to help us solve the conundrum.   He defines it as “leadership birth rate”.  Check out his Workforce Magazine article here for some more insights on this measurement here.

Although we advocate for a multiple hurdles approach to leadership effectiveness measurement, if we need one measurement to look at whether it is leadership or any other dimension, go by how you define that dimension and measure that. For us, we’ll measure “leadership birth rate”. What about you?

 

 

If you like this post, you may also like:

All Leaders Need to Develop Others