How Do You Know if Your Leadership Is Any Good?

3 min readNov 30, 2022

How do you know if your leadership is any good? The quick answer is that many busy professionals don’t. They fake it, fumbling through it, hoping no one notices. Or, they do as they have always done since they haven’t gotten into serious trouble so far. It would be better to have some structure — a roadmap to reference and work off. One place to start is by having more conversations around leadership. If you want to manage better and lead well without becoming a jerk, here are a few topics from Karl Bimshas Consulting to consider.

Leadership Desire

Do you want to manage better and lead well?
If not, what would create a desire for you to do that?
If yes, what are your reasons? Is it for personal or professional growth, to prepare for promotion, general or specific improvement needs, or to leave a legacy?

Leadership Scale

What is the scope and scale of your leadership development? Are you looking to improve self-leadership, one-on-one leadership, team leadership, organizational leadership, or governance?

Leadership Alignment

Is there a reasonable alignment between your vision, mission, and values and those of the organization?

Leadership Goal-Setting

Are you focused on client satisfaction, employee satisfaction, profitable revenue growth, or something else?
Have you completed any “moment-in-time snapshots” of your leadership behavior or motivations to create a baseline measure?
Do you have a sense of urgency around leadership improvements?
How strong is your commitment to leadership development for yourself and your team members?

Leadership Gaps

Are there noticeable gaps in your leadership skills, behaviors, or attributes that you’d like to fill or chasms you need to bridge?

Leadership Competency Models

Do you know what success looks like? Are improvements in leadership something you could measure with an existing leadership competency model, or is it based on someone’s senses, feelings, or whim?

Leadership Strategy

Do you have an existing leadership process, or do you need to create a better method?
Is there a current team charter or a similar system you use for creating and working with teams?
How do you determine objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives for your organization, team, or self?
How do you work through the implementation and inspection of your goals?
Do you need outside intervention, accountability, or training to improve your leadership?

Leadership Reflection and Review

Do you invest time in reviewing leadership lessons learned?
Is there a proof source for your leadership improvement?
Has there been lasting progress improvement in your leadership?
How do you deal with errors in your leadership?
What results could you recycle and improve?
What are your next steps in leadership development for yourself and members of your organization?

As you ponder these leadership questions, you’ll determine how your leadership life is going. If you are pleased — good for you; keep it up! If you would like to make improvements for yourself, your team, or your organization, reach out to Karl Bimshas Consulting, and we will discuss which of our array of leadership development tools would be best for you.