As a team leader, you own the key results for your team, meaning that you will probably have a handful of KPIs on your list (2-3) that are the main metrics for your team’s success. For example, if you lead a sales team, you will probably have some key metrics around revenue and the number of deals closed. Your team members would have their KPIs that roll up, but you likely own the total number for the team. For a product leader, you might have metrics around NPS scores or product adoption that you own, finance team leaders will have financial KPIs to measure performance for the employee effectiveness of their team, and so on in other cross-functional departments.
In addition to those key results of your team’s performance, you may also want to track key leadership metrics around your performance as a leader. Measuring KPIs around your leadership will help you improve your skills in this important area. Updating status weekly on leadership KPIs puts this key aspect of your role front and center in your rhythm of work, some employee performance KPIs might be measured within another time frame - such as monthly. Our experience has shown that the shorter the time frame, the better as you can give feedback and coaching before it gets too far off track, just make sure that they are specific, measurable, and actionable when created during team planning. Key performance indicators for team leaders are some of the most important metrics that you can develop to drive overall team performance and recognize top performers.
Key Performance Indicators for Team Leaders:
- Training hours or dollars invested in your team - Part of your job is ensuring your team has the skills and knowledge they need for their current jobs as well as the roles they will fill in the future as your company grows.
- Team Retention - Growing and keeping your top talent is key. You may want to track a KPI around turnover or retention on your team. Promotions from your team may be another good metric.
- Employee Satisfaction or Pulse score - Some companies use employee satisfaction surveys or more frequent “pulse” surveys to gauge employee happiness; if you have data like this segmented for your team, it could be valuable. It may not be a helpful KPI to measure weekly; you may need to dig deep and find out what the leading indicators are of happiness on your team and measure that instead.
- eNPS or other Employee Engagement metrics - Again, these are lagging indicators of employee engagement which probably are measured annually or quarterly rather than weekly. For your weekly KPI dashboard, you might look for patterns in the feedback for why your team members score the way they do and try to measure doing more of the things they value or find most engaging.
- 1:1’s Completed with Team Members - Frequent touch points and real-time feedback can be invaluable. Spending time with your direct reports, even in informal settings like lunch or coffee, can be an important way to build trust and deepen relationships. Taking time to get to know your team members as people (what matters to them, what their goals are) will go a long way in your ability to lead your team. It is also a good idea to attend some team meetings, but don't show up as a surprise! Make sure that you also complete all of your skip level meetings.
- Team Health Index - This is a simple “gut-check” metric we use to gauge whether any team members are overloaded or feeling full. It helps leaders know who may have the bandwidth for additional work and who may need help (or when we may need to hire additional resources to share the workload.)
Leadership KPIs That Measure Your Development:
- Weekly Accountability Reflection - One key to leadership effectiveness is taking time to reflect on your performance regularly. Spend time each week thinking and possibly journaling about what you are doing well, what you are learning, and what you need to improve as a leader.
- Weekly Keep Smart and Think Time - In addition to investing in learning time for your team, you need to focus on raising your effectiveness by continuing your learning. Part of being a good leader involves strategic thinking and vision-casting, which doesn’t happen in a bolt of inspiration; it takes time to think and cultivate ideas for the future.
- Specific Performance Metrics measuring progress on particular leadership or job skills you are improving - You should have a Personal Path of Progress or Peak Performance Plan in which you identify specific skills to improve, whether those are leadership or job performance skills. You can track your progress in developing those specific skills or implementing new habits as KPIs.
You do not need to be tracking all of these things; it would be too many. Rather, think about the results and behaviors you want to influence or need to improve and start measuring KPIs to move the needle. Your list might not include any of these examples, but hopefully, this list prompts your thinking on the kind of measures you can put on your KPI dashboard to help you improve the “softer” side of your role as a leader. Measuring leadership is difficult so whatever leadership metrics you use will help become a better team leader, so make sure that you start and adjust as necessary.