How can leaders stay in tune with their most important partners — their employees? By staying in touch and regularly surveying team members.
According to TinyPulse, the most effective surveys — those with actionable questions and high response rates — enable leaders to understand what practices boost workplace respect and results, and what practices inhibit them.
I coach clients to conduct two different surveys twice a year — one survey rating each leader’s values alignment, and one survey rating the leadership team’s effectiveness in guiding the company.
Crafting the right questions is vital! It requires a combination of art and science. If you’re new to creating surveys, seek expert help to ensure you pose questions that will give you actionable data and to guide you in survey administration.
For your values alignment survey, questions are derived from your company’s defined measurable, tangible, and observable behaviors. If your company doesn’t have values defined in behavioral terms, that’s a key step before you survey your employees.
Every company’s values and behaviors are unique to them. Here are two examples from a current client’s values alignment survey:
- “My direct boss fosters an atmosphere of positivity at work.”
- “My direct boss listens objectively to others without interruption.”
In today’s 3.5-minute episode of my Culture Leadership Charge video for SmartBrief, I share what rating scale you should use to get actionable results from your surveys as well as two sample questions from my leadership team effectiveness survey.
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