Dr Victor Abbey

Food for Thought - End of Year Leadership Review - 2020

Dec 05, 2020

Food For Thought

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All too soon, 2020 is drawing its curtains to a close. As leaders, I believe we have endeavoured and endured to provide the much needed leadership guidance and direction for our team members and organizations, towards the attainment of our various set Strategic Goals, amid the numerous challenges. Indeed, the successes we are very proud of, and the learnt lessons from the challenges.

In the next couple of weeks, most of us will be engaged in Performance Appraisals and Strategic Review sessions with our team members, aimed at offering appropriate and timely feedback on how the individual team members and the entire organization have fared over the year. One very significant influence on a team member’s or the organization’s performance is “leadership” (research findings of Carnegie Institute). Thus, 15% of organizational success is influenced by technical skills, while 85% is impacted by people skills (leadership).

So, as we embark on this year’s routine Performance Appraisals and Strategic review sessions, it’s very important to look back and take stock of our own stewardship as leaders, so as to identify any lapses in our own leadership skills and its impact on the general performance of our various teams, individual team members and our organizations as a whole.

To effectively undertake this, it may be worthwhile going through the following Nine (9) questions I consider very relevant. Endeavor to answer them sincerely.

The questions are:

1. How much of my own goals have I achieved within the period?

2. What recognizable or obvious mistakes have I made as a leader over the period, and what lessons have I learnt?

3. How clear or unambiguous has my expectations of my team members been? In other words, how effective has my communication been with my team over the period?

4. How effective have I delegated some of my responsibilities to other team members to help them develop?

5. How much or often have I acknowledged team or individual creativity that led to successful work outcomes?

6. How much coaching and/or mentoring have I provided for my team members and/or the team?

7. How much has my leadership style impacted the morale of my team members and the organization as a whole?

8. How effective has my leadership style been in general, over the year (2019)?

9. What kind of leader or a team member do I want to be in 2020?

Perhaps, the last question presents the opportunity to improve upon our leadership styles in the coming year. For example, if we want to be a more open and collaborative leaders, then we must set goals for how to achieve that. We must create and spend time to give more meaningful and frequent feedback, connect authentically and learn to be better listeners.
Let your thoughts seep in, and do stay with the questions over the next few weeks. I encourage you to create and spend time with these questions to gain meaningful insight of your own leadership.