Performance and control problems in leadership

Leadership in an organizational context assumes immense importance as the leader is responsible for guiding a team in the right direction.

Any ignorance regarding the direction to move in or the way of proceeding can easily turn into a blunder wrecking havoc on the group of people in terms of time, expenses and efforts. As has been rightly said by someone, "Managers do the things right but Leaders do the right things", the whole process has to be monitored meticulously to do the "right things" and KPIs serve this purpose.

Equally important are the means for ensuring that the kind of leadership that exists in the organization is taking it towards the achievement of pre-set objectives and goals. KPIs are one such way. The performance indicators are intended to provide clarity and specificity about the skills, beliefs, and knowledge a person needs to demonstrate effective leadership in improving organizational achievement. The effectiveness of leadership can be measured, in the simplest manner, by knowing the size of the congregation he/she can gather. However, this tends to be a very crude and unrefined way of evaluating effectiveness of leadership and would be an indicator more of power rather than effectiveness as the people in a rally can be increased in number via umpteen gimmicks and tactics. Therefore, true parameter for gauging the effectives of a leader can come from choosing indicators which are more realistic and can be quantified. This is where KPIs can help.

An important characteristic of KPIs is their quantifiable natures so we can measure the effectiveness of leadership i.e. financially value the productivity. This can be done by keeping in mind the fact that effective leaders generate more productivity, lower costs and more opportunities as compared to the non-effective leaders. Also, the number of instances of achievement of goals and objectives and their quality under a powerful leadership are substantially higher than in the absence of such condition. Some KPIs which can be used include succession planning, problem solving time and change management.

One of the foremost challenges faced by a leader lies in tying people together in a team and persuading them in such a manner that they place the organizational goals prior to fulfilling their own desires of personal growth. Another challenge can be cultural clash which a leader-manager has to manage when people with different backgrounds work together in a team. Quantifying leadership, as mentioned above, is yet another hurdle faced in the process of evaluating this phenomenon; however one can escape these problems by employing KPIs for measuring the parameter.

KPIs, which comprise both financial and non-financial parameters aid in carrying out the task of assessing leadership. This is achieved by assigning values to the various parameters and comparing them with the standards to know the extent of deviation as well as in formulating the means for minimizing them. To sum up, with the existence of the concept of KPIs one can heave a sigh of relief regarding the evaluation of leadership as these will take care of the burden of guiding the managers to move in the right direction.