There are hundreds of leadership assessments for leaders. The content and quality of these assessments vary greatly. You can spend a lot of time and money taking surveys to tell you the quality of your leadership. There are a few leading indicators that can be used to give a pretty good picture of the overall quality of your leadership. These are not good for diagnosing problems or specifying corrective action, but they can tell you where you stand quickly. Here is one of my favorite measures.
Know your “In Versus Out Ratio”
Are people striving to get into your organization or are they trying to find ways to get out? It is pretty easy to assess if people want to get in because you will have a long line of individuals contacting you to ask in what way they can join your group. Some people are very persistent, and it is a good sign when highly talented people ask you to keep looking for a spot for them.
The second measure is harder to assess because when people want to get out of your organization, it is not always obvious. The telltale sign is if individuals are “looking for other opportunities.” Usually a leader does not know what percentage of his or her population is trying to find alternate employment. That is because if lots of people want out, there is likely very little trust in the organization.
With low trust, people will hide the fact they are looking for a different job out of self protection. The best time to find a job is when you already have a job, so people can go years while looking around to find a better position. Likewise in an environment of low trust you might be afraid for your employment if your boss knew you were looking elsewhere.
It is obvious that when people are looking elsewhere, they are not giving 100% of their best to the current organization. If there are several people in this situation it can really sap productivity and morale.
So the yin and yang for a leader is that if trust is high, people will generally be wanting in and that information will be rather transparent due to the long line. If trust is low, the number of people wanting out is a hidden number.
My bottom line for all leaders is to ask if they know the ratio of people wanting to get in versus out. If they have a good idea, then they are good leaders. If they have no clue, it reflects poorly on the quality of their leadership. It is a simple and remarkably accurate barometer.
Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow Inc., a company dedicated to growing leaders. He speaks and conducts seminars on building trust in organizations. He can be reached at bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585-392-7763.
Leadership Barometer 61 Your in Versus Out Ratio
August 10, 2020
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Leadership Barometer 1 Your In vs Out Ratio
June 4, 2019
This is the first in a series of brief articles on how you can tell the caliber of leaders in your organization. These ideas do not replace the need for more thorough assessments, but they are really handy gut checks on how leaders are doing.
There are hundreds of leadership assessments for leaders. The content and quality of these assessments vary greatly. You can spend a lot of time and money taking surveys to tell you the quality of your leadership. There are a few leading indicators that can be used to give a pretty good picture of the overall quality of your leadership. These are not good for diagnosing problems or specifying corrective action, but they can tell you where you stand quickly. Here is one of my favorite measures.
Know your “In Vs. Out Ratio”
Are people striving to get into your organization or are they trying to find ways to get out?
It is pretty easy to assess if people want to get in because you will have a long line of individuals contacting you to ask in what way they can join your group. Some people are very persistent, and it is a good sign when highly talented people ask you to keep looking for a spot for them.
The second measure is harder to assess because when people want to get out of your organization, it is not always obvious. The telltale sign is if individuals are “looking for other opportunities.”
Usually a leader does not know what percentage of his or her population is trying to find alternate employment. That is because if lots of people want out, there is likely very little trust in the organization.
With low trust, people will hide the fact they are looking for a different job out of self protection. The best time to find a job is when you already have a job, so people can go years while looking around to find a better position.
Likewise in an environment of low trust you might be afraid for your employment if your boss knew you were looking elsewhere.
It is obvious that when people are looking elsewhere, they are not giving 100% of their best to the current organization. If there are several people in this situation it can really sap productivity and morale.
So the yin and yang for a leader is that if trust is high, people will generally be wanting in and that information will be rather transparent due to the long line. If trust is low, the number of people wanting out is a hidden number.
My bottom line for all leaders is to ask if they know the ratio of people wanting to get in versus out. If they have a good idea, then they are good leaders. If they have no clue, it reflects poorly on the quality of their leadership. It is a simple and remarkably accurate barometer.
Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow, Inc. an organization dedicated to growing leaders. He can be reached at bwhipple@leadergrow.com 585-392-7763. Website http://www.leadergrow.com BLOG http://www.thetrustambassador.com He is author of the following books: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind
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The Ratchet Effect
October 24, 2015
A few years ago, I built a kind of Rube Goldberg invention that I call my “Trust Barometer.” It has a ratchet with a handle and a crank so that I can wind up a weight suspended by a string and I have a scale showing how much trust is in a relationship.
Trust is similar to a bank account we have with people. There is a balance of trust at any point in time, and we can make deposits that increase the balance, or we can make withdrawals that reduce the balance.
Of course, the idea is to keep the balance as high as possible, and then we will enjoy the benefits of high trust with that person.
The barometer works well to illustrate an important principle. Trust is usually gained in small steps like the individual clicks of a ratchet, so over time we build up trust with another person by making small deposits and winding up the weight.
We do things like treating people with respect, following up on promises, helping out when there is an opportunity, and hundreds of other small things that all add to the trust account.
Making large deposits in the trust account with people is more difficult than making small ones. It usually takes a special situation to make a big deposit.
For example, if I am walking by your house and you come running out screaming that your house is on fire but your dog is trapped, that represents a unique opportunity.
If I go in and save your dog, that would be a large trust deposit because I risked my life to save your dog. It was a special circumstance in which I had the opportunity to demonstrate my bravery and affection.
Normally we make deposits in small steps, but the account builds up over time.
The trust scale has a numbers from 1 to 10. The ratchet is held in place with a pawl that prevents it from rotating backwards. When there is a trust withdrawal, the pawl disengages and the weight crashes down to zero setting off a button that enables a screaming voice, as if all trust was lost in one statement.
It is all very comical, but it is a great illustration of how trust is built and lost in our lives.
In English, the ratchet effect sounds like this. I have known Mark for several years. I’ve always trusted him; he has never given me any reason to doubt him. But after he said that in the meeting yesterday, I’ll never trust him again.
We think that way as individuals, and it really works against trust because it takes so long to build up the account of trust and it can be destroyed in a single sentence or even some body language in a meeting.
The trouble is that when we go to rebuild trust, it takes a long time before the deposits even register in higher trust.
The best way to show the dynamic is to view this six-minute video of the trust barometer in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE3jd0bzULI
Exercise for you: Today, simply be aware of the transactional nature of trust such that you have a balance in the trust account with people and every time you interact with them you’re either making deposits in the trust account or withdrawals.
Notice how when there is a withdrawal it can be a very serious withdrawal very quickly. That is the phenomenon demonstrated by the ratchet effect.
Leaders need to recognize that it takes a long time of consistent deposits in the trust account to build up an impressive trust balance, but that balance can be wiped out in a single sentence or gesture or email or any other interaction with the other person.
In order to maintain a good balance of trust we need to be consistent with deposits and avoid the mega trust withdrawals.
The preceding was derived from an episode in “Building Trust,” a 30 part video series by Bob Whipple “The Trust Ambassador.” To view three short (3 minutes each) examples at no cost go to http://www.avanoo.com/first3/517
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