Our Leadership Assessment Process:
Step I – Interview with the Executive Leader:
Being the Executive Leader of an organization is a very complex, high stress job with key responsibilities including strategic, budgetary, regulatory, policy development, public affairs, management recruitment and retention and Board of Directors relationships. We also know from experience that the skills that got Executive Leaders into the top job are not the skills that necessarily keep them there over time. Leadership is a continuous process of skill development and personal improvement.
Our goal is to partner with the Executive Leader as we seek to understand their key motivations, frustrations and dreams. From this initial meeting we begin to set the next key steps in place.
Step II – Executive Leadership Organizational Assessment Checklist:
We have developed an Executive Leader Organizational Assessment Checklist that addresses the critical functions and legal obligations of a well functioning organization whether in the non-profit or for-profit domain. Just as you wouldn’t fly a plane without doing an initial checklist, no Executive Leader should sit in the Executive suite without a checklist assessment process. The Executive Leader Organizational Assessment Checklist provides a rigorous tool for reviewing an organization’s performance and sets the stage for assisting in setting the Executive Leader’s organizational priorities. A review of the organization’s policies for comprehensiveness and regulatory compliance is part of our checklist.
Step III – Executive Leader Self-Evaluation Questionnaire:
This questionnaire provides important feedback to the Executive Leader regarding an assessment by peers, the Board Chair and members of the Executive Team of the key distinctive leadership competencies of the Executive Leader. Done correctly, the Executive Leader Self-Evaluation Questionnaire provides a pathway to assure that the skills of the Executive Leader align with the Mission, Purpose and Vision of the organization.
Step IV – Development of an Executive Leader Coaching Plan:
The development of a leader requires self-knowledge and a commitment to acknowledge vulnerability and to learn from others. Only in this way can a leader acquire the kind of authenticity that attracts and retains the most competent employees and talent.
Leaders are also individuals that evolve from multiple personality types and temperaments and embody a full spectrum of skill sets. Yet they share a host of common characteristics.
Leaders are self-starters, self-sufficient, goal oriented, results focused, planners, forward thinkers, often stoic and steadfast in the face of adversity, used to being in charge and in control, and invested in and often motivated by external measures of success (power, status, money and growth of the organization).
The Ted Talk speaker and author Simon Sinek, author of the classic “Start With Why“, explores how leaders can inspire cooperation, trust and change. The bottom line from Sinek related to Executive Leadership is that “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”
Companies and CEOs that begin with conveying mission and purpose (“Why We Are Here”) over what the company produces create more employee and customer engagement.
Our Executive Leader Coaching Plan starts with a focus on the Executive Leader’s desire to make a difference. Using the Executive Leadership Organizational Assessment Checklist and the Executive Leader Self-Evaluation Questionnaire we build a Coaching Plan that integrates this information and creates a supportive but rigorous plan to achieve the results that truly make a difference.