{“mapped”:”1. Inspiring a shared vision”,”developing”:”Your business plan needs to be fully integrated into your processes and clearly communicated across your organization. The plan should articulate where your business is headed and what you need to do to get there. It should also provide a mission statement that outlines your organization\u2019s purpose, target markets and goals for the future. This will help your people understand how your business can best serve its customers versus your competitors.”,”proficient”:”Are you struggling to communicate your vision and bring teams together to drive your business forward? The best way to get people to buy-in to your plan is to include a broad range of contributors in the planning process. Keep it simple: Develop four to six long-term goals for achieving your vision. Appoint champions who will promote and support your goals throughout the organization. Ensure everyone is clear about how they can contribute to your organization\u2019s success.”,”highly skilled”:”You excel at strategic planning and communicating your vision across your organization. But don’t rest on your laurels. Developing a business plan is an ongoing process that needs continual monitoring and review. It\u2019s best to conduct reviews with your senior management team every 60-90 days and set up channels for employees to provide feedback. Review the strategies of all your business functions to ensure alignment with your overall strategy. For example, your sales team should know how their strategy links to the overall business strategy.”,”other”:””}

{“mapped”:”2. Leading (and letting others manage)”,”developing”:”Leaders chart a course for others to follow. They spend most of their time working on the business instead of in the business. Trusting others to lead is essential. If you are afraid to let go of the reins, is it because you don’t really understand your people? Take time to listen to them, discover their strengths and motivations and find ways to make their life easier at work. Leaders must listen in order to earn the right to be heard, and people value a leader who has genuine concern for them.”,”proficient”:”You know how to use vision to bring people together. But you may need to focus more on your employees to get them to follow you. Try to create conditions that make it easier for your employees to do a fantastic job. Clarify what good work looks like, give your employees freedom and responsibility, and promote ownership and accountability. Grow their capabilities and experiences so you can feel confident about giving them more control. As you become a more accessible, approachable and flexible leader, your employees will trust you more, too.”,”highly skilled”:”Go from a good leader to a great leader by improving your “followership” skills — that is, how it feels for people to follow you. Foster a culture in which employees strongly agree with these statements: · I know what is expected of me at work. · I have the opportunity to do my best work every day. · In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work. · My supervisor or someone at work seems to care about me as a person.”,”other”:””}

{“mapped”:”3. Knowing your numbers”,”developing”:”Make sure you have the right information to look into the future and devise action plans that improve your company’s performance. This involves taking information from your financial statements and key indicators. Develop a big-picture perspective by asking: • What do your indicators say about the health of the business? • What else should you be tracking? • What does this tell you about the future (not just your company’s part in it)? Historical data is important, but don’t just focus on the past; manage the present and anticipate the future. Use key indicators to project into the future and understand what might happen to the business under various scenarios. Then use this intelligence to develop goals, action plans and incentives for your people to deliver the results you want.”,”proficient”:”Every company should track basic financial indicators such as sales, cash flow and gross margins. However, to improve your financial performance, you should also look at indicators that are specific to your business and industry and tell you where the business is headed. Know what stimulates growth and sales in your business and track these indicators; they will help you manage forward versus correcting problems after the fact. To promote accountability among your people, align their performance measurements with these indicators. You could also use performance-based compensation to encourage engagement.”,”highly skilled”:”You understand how to apply a big-picture perspective to improve your business’s financial performance. However, you should continue to look for ways to use key indicators to forecast the future. Forward-facing key indicators will prompt you to take action and show you what needs to be done. The ideal key indicator both predicts and modifies behavior. For example, you might discover that timely delivery is the best predictor of customer satisfaction, and that drives profitable revenue growth. Ensuring that your people recognize the importance of this driver will encourage them to develop the right behaviors. “,”other”:””}

{“mapped”:”4. Having and keeping the right people”,”developing”:”If your business has high turnover, low morale, internal conflicts and a pattern of \u201cmis-hires,\u201d then it’s time to review your talent-management strategy. Avoid making hiring decisions based on gut instinct. Use a methodical strategy that breaks down hiring step-by-step and probes for success factors in candidates. Make a consistent, meaningful effort to establish and sustain effective teamwork throughout your organization, ensuring that everyone understands and respects what motivates each other. Build engagement with incentive plans that are clearly tied to your business strategy. Ensure everyone can participate and be rewarded for valuable behaviors and outcomes. “,”proficient”:”Attracting and retaining the best talent is a critical factor for a successful business. Create compelling marketing campaigns to attract the best talent and evaluate candidates against an objective definition of success. Ensure your people understand how to align their daily actions with the company’s mission and values; for example, use job-performance scoring that clearly shows how their outcomes contribute to the company. This will also enable you to identify star talent and fast-track them into bigger, more rewarding roles.”,”highly skilled”:”Competition for the best talent is fierce. Even if you have an excellent talent-management program, continue to look for ways to improve it. Don’t hire based on past performance alone. Instead, define success factors for new positions and question how candidates can use their skills to replicate past successes. Learn to balance the differing and changing needs of a diverse and multigenerational workforce, where digital transformation is radically changing the nature of work. Make sure that you proactively design and implement a work culture that is challenging, satisfying and fun.”,”other”:””}

{“mapped”:”5. Creating and retaining customer loyalty”,”developing”:”Research has shown that employee engagement is a key driver of customer satisfaction. If your employees are passionate about your business, that feeling will spread to your customers. Lead by example by sharing your passion for the business with your employees and customers. Put the customer at the center and emphasize what makes your company different from your competitors. Every customer interaction is an opportunity to build loyalty. Map your customers’ end-to-end journeys to understand how they experience your business and how you can improve it. Attracting new customers is a waste of money if your customer satisfaction is poor; you will end up selling those customers a bad experience.”,”proficient”:”In this age of customer centricity, no business can afford to deliver mediocre customer service. Use consistent monitoring to understand what your customers really want and make sure that every touchpoint is consistently high quality. Invest in your front-line staff; they can glean insights about your customers and drive customer behaviors that are profitable for your business. Put systems and processes in place that encourage your employees to improve and be successful. What your customers think about your business is critically important. Make time to personally engage with them on a regular basis so you understand why they chose you over your competition.”,”highly skilled”:”To sustain the loyalty of your customers, commit to a process of continuous improvement. Never be content with your customer service. Always look for opportunities to improve so your customer service supports current and future growth. Understanding your customers means more than knowing what they want; it means identifying your most valuable customers and delighting them with gold-standard customer service. These high-value customers are the lifeblood of your future business and regular engagement with them is critical. By maintaining the conversation, you can better understand what they want in order to adapt as their needs evolve.”,”other”:””}

{“mapped”:”6. Watching emerging trends, risks and opportunities”,”developing”:”No one can predict the future \u2014\u00a0but you can prepare for it. Performing a systematic scan of your environment will help you better understand the nature of pace and change and identify potential opportunities and risks for your business. To encourage your management team to develop new ideas and stay abreast of emerging trends, introduce a formal, systematic method for scanning the environment that focuses on critical decisions that your organization faces. Based on those insights, determine an action plan for how the business can respond.”,”proficient”:”Devoting time to scanning your environment ultimately saves time. Think about how much time and effort banks could have saved if they had responded to the signals that the credit bubble was about to burst. Encourage your management team to be curious and look outside the box. Ask them to pay attention to the perceived environment (what you notice and talk about) and the pertinent environment (what can change the organization). Regularly review your strategic plan by identifying the drivers of change and how they might evolve over time. Consider what challenges might emerge and how you might address them.”,”highly skilled”:”Scanning your environment can inform your thinking about how to respond and operate in today’s turbulent and uncertain business environment. It\u2019s a good idea to continuously collect and process data on a broad range of issues that could affect your business. This will help you to act quickly and take advantage of opportunities before your competitors do, as well as respond to threats before they cause damage. Make sure you create an organizational structure and culture that encourages information sharing. Challenge your team’s assumptions when developing your plans. If your brain doesn’t hurt, you’re not stretching your thinking enough. “,”other”:””}

{“mapped”:”7. Taking care of yourself”,”developing”:”Ignoring wellbeing in the workplace is counterproductive. It leads to lower productivity, greater inefficiency, increased sickness and absenteeism, and higher staff turnover. Your own wellbeing and that of your staff is a strategic issue because it influences the success of your business. Does your work culture encourage stress and poor health and fitness choices? Consider making changes so that people have the information and opportunity to eat well, get enough exercise and take time to de-stress. Lead by example by taking care of your own wellbeing and serving as a role model for others.”,”proficient”:”Make a more consistent effort to improve your workforce’s wellbeing \u2014\u00a0and your own wellbeing \u2014 by developing an employee wellness program. Track your employees\u2019 health and fitness, monitor key welfare indicators, emphasize employee satisfaction and encourage healthy eating. To make this process fun and inclusive, set goals and ask employees for ideas on how to meet them. Wellbeing at work benefits everyone, so it needs to be everyone\u2019s responsibility.”,”highly skilled”:”Improving the wellbeing of your employees should be part of your corporate social responsibility. Consider using apps, smart devices and wearables to get better data about your employees\u2019 wellbeing and introduce fun, new ways to participate in your programs. Ensure that your work culture always underpins your wellness strategies. Have reasonable expectations of your staff. Don’t reward long hours or tolerate substandard work. Ensure people are clear about their responsibilities and know they will be supported if they need it.”,”other”:”Thank you for completing this leadership assessment. “}

{“124″:”Good leaders are not born; they are made. Leadership is a skill that you can learn just like any other. The best way to learn that skill is from other successful leaders and from using proven tools and techniques. Vistage provides confidential peer-advisory groups and executive coaching for CEOs, business owners and key executives. As a Vistage member, you will join an exclusive group of 12-18 chief executives to work on pressing issues under the direction of a highly trained executive coach. You will also gain access to expert workshops, one-to-one coaching, exclusive events, and an online toolkit with articles and resources. Vistage is a trusted resource for chief executives who seek to become more effective leaders, make more informed decisions and deliver greater results. Through Vistage, you will gain practical leadership skills that can transform your business and accelerate the growth of your company. In fact, according to a 2017 study, Vistage member companies grew 2.2 faster than average small and midsize U.S. businesses.”,”169″:”Take your leadership skills to the next level by tapping into today’s brightest minds. Learn to make better decisions and accelerate your development. Vistage provides confidential peer-advisory groups and executive coaching for CEOs, business owners and key executives. As a Vistage member, you will join an exclusive group of 12-18 chief executives to work on pressing issues under the direction of a highly trained executive coach. You will also gain access to expert workshops, one-to-one coaching, exclusive events, and an online toolkit with articles and resources. Vistage is a trusted resource for chief executives who seek to become better leaders, make better decisions and deliver better results. With Vistage, you can refine your instincts, improve your judgment, expand your perspective and optimize your decision-making.”,”210″:”Congratulations! You have successfully developed your leadership skills across all key metrics. You are effectively driving your business forward and bringing your best people with you. Importantly, you are continuously seeking ways to improve your business and ensure its future success. Vistage provides confidential peer-advisory groups and executive coaching for CEOs, business owners and key executives. As a Vistage member, you will work with top executives to take your leadership skills to the next level — expanding your capabilities, refining your instincts and broadening your perspective. You will also gain access to one-on-one coaching, exclusive events, expert workshops, and an online toolkit with articles and resources. Great leaders recognize the importance of learning from experts and peers. Vistage provides the ideal platform to accomplish this. “}