Leadership Metrics Date:   Monday , March 05, 2012 Organizations require a "measurement mind-set" and defined metrics to quantify and gauge the organization success and health. By definition, a metric is a standard measure to assess your performance in a particular area. 'Leadership' is an important function in a organization, so are we measuring its leaders performance? The role of a leader is an elusive one and its hard to define. The essence of leadership is to create an environment for success, provide the vision and direction, motivate the team and develop other leaders. As, Joanne Ciulla, rightfully said "Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good." Accountability or Measuring these intangibles by a number is not straight forward. Having said that, a basis for measurement is required for hiring leaders at various organizational levels and to gauge the growth of a leader. The industry recognizes this vital fact. Over the past few years, there are various assessment tools and indexes that are available for measurement. One of the most popular one being "Leadership Practices Inventory(LPI)" by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. The LPI Measurement Model is a 360-degree assessment instrument and uses a series of behavioral questions to assess leadership effectiveness. This model includes two parts: LPI SELF: Its a way of independently measuring one's own leadership behaviors. This part is a 30 questions assessment instrument that provides a way for individual Leaders to measure the frequency of their own specific leadership behaviors on a 10-point frequency scale. LPI OBSERVER: This part is completed by others(observers) who work with the Leader. Observers typically include managers, direct reports or co-workers. It has 30 specific leadership behavioral questions that provides 360-degree feedback on the behaviour of the leader. Its measured on a 10-point frequency scale. The above assessment tool is not standardized, organizations can also use the other models like: ? Leadership Odyssey by Carole S. Napolitano and Lida J. Henderson - This assessment tool includes instructions on practical exercises for creating leaders and interpreting the assessment results quantitatively. ? Meyers Briggs type indicator - This is the best overall assessment tool for understanding the different personality types of people. This helps a leader to understand individual personality type and to shift their own behaviours to motivate and influence others of different types ? Emotional Competence - "Emotional intelligence", is a important factor behind leadership effectiveness. EI is defined as "the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions". There are several models of measuring EI, some of them are ECI 360, EQ-i (Emotional Quotient inventory), WPQei (Work Profile Questionnaire emotional intelligence) and EQ Map. Every organization has to carefully choose the assessment tool to use in organizational and individual leadership measurement. The following are some of the issues which need to be considered during the selections: ? What to Measure ? How to Measure It ? Verifying that measurement is Accurate ? How to Present the Results ? Collecting, Managing and Using the Data Regardless of which assessment tool an organization decides to use, including leadership metrics is very important. These metrics quantify the extent to which the leaders of the organization affect its growth by influencing and driving performance.