Leadership appears on no delivery note. Yet it can be read in an organisation’s results, and it can be tracked with simple indicators. The mistake is to look at only one family — usually finance.
| Family | What we want to know | Examples of indicators |
|---|---|---|
| Strategy | Does the team know where it is going? | Team alignment, goal achievement, project success, risk management. |
| Engagement | Do people feel involved? | Involvement, retention, clarity of communication, collaboration. |
| Efficiency | Is the work well organised? | Process flow, use of resources, quality of work, customer satisfaction. |
| Finance | Is the business sustainable? | Revenue growth, margin, cost control, cash, return on investment. |
| Innovation | Is the organisation progressing? | Ideas implemented, continuous improvement, tool adoption, training. |
Few indicators, well chosen
Thirty indicators tracked with the same intensity are thirty ways of steering nothing. Better to keep one or two per family, display them and, above all, discuss them regularly with the teams. An indicator that never triggers a discussion or an action is a useless indicator.
Measuring leadership starts with looking at what the teams experience.
In turnaround phases, engagement indicators are often the first signals: they move before the financial results. Tracking them makes it possible to anticipate — and to know whether the momentum is really picking up.
Key takeaways
- Five families: strategy, engagement, efficiency, finance, innovation.
- One or two indicators per family are enough.
- Engagement often heralds performance.
