Is your Leadership Survey Doing the Trick?

A leadership survey is a set of questions to assess leaders in organisations. This means that employees and colleagues answer questions based on the performance of their leader. A leadership survey is generally done once the person has been in the position for a considerable amount of time. It would not be fair to rate someone who is only in a leadership position for a  few months.

What questions do you ask in a Leadership Survey?

Questions vary based on the skill, quality, or behaviour you want to determine. For example, you want to determine their communication skills. Therefore, you can pose a question like “how often does your manager give feedback?”. Feedback is the most important element in communication. Having good communication skills does not mean you talk a lot. It means you talk about things of importance. Which includes awkward conversations.

Leadership surveys differ. Each survey depends on what you would like to know or improve on. Therefore, the questions asked are based on the performance the company would like. To effectively get the outcome you want, you need to be clear and precise on the questions you ask. A good tip would be to split questions into categories. The categories will be based on the outcomes you want to determine. And place questions in their specific category. Remember, what do you want to know by asking the question?

Tips for a Leadership Survey

Tony Robbins says that “successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”

Be sure to know why you are doing the survey. Before starting the roll-out, ask yourself, “why am I conducting this survey”. Identifying the purpose of the survey before the time will clarify your end goal. Make your end goal known. Have it written down and shared with others. Sharing with others can help you take accountability and remind you to revert back to it.

Ask one question at a time. That means that you do not try to kill two birds with one stone. More often than not, employees may leave out a part of the question. Similarly, when one straightforward question is asked, it is easier to think about and answer. It is easier to be extremely specific than vague when setting questions. This will make it easier for the one filling in the survey.

Make sure your survey is user-friendly. This reflects the company. In addition, you will receive full surveys that users completely understand. It is best to keep consistent answer options. As said previously, users can understand and keep the same answer method in mind.

Lastly, stay away from asking questions that lead the employees to answer in a certain way. For example, “how great is your boss?”. It already implies a certain answer. The answer will not be completely honest. Tampering with the results of the survey.

The benefit of conducting a Leadership Survey

Many surveys are conducted in the workplace. Employees are familiar with filling in surveys. And they are more familiar with nothing being done about the surveys. Therefore, it is important to follow through. Make sure that necessary action is taken. Employees are known to perform better when they know their voice is being heard. This also means that employees will feel they have something to contribute. Which improves engagement and performance.

Leadership will improve. In the surveys, there will be useful information. That help leaders to improve on behaviour and skill. By improving leadership, in the same vein employees will be more engaged.

Care & Growth

At Schuitema, they provide different kinds of surveys for leadership, team and personal excellence. Each containing its own categories for specific reasons. The Care & Growth Model, a subset of The Intent Thematic, is a universal leadership thematic that is based on the premise that we exist to serve the other and, in doing so, we actually serve the highest of our own self-interest. To find out more about what we do, check out our website.

Speak to a consultant to find out more about leadership surveys.

To stay in touch with our content, sign up for our newsletter

Aaishah Abrahams