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Leadership Involvement Checklist

This tool helps leaders reflect on their strategies for leadership, and how these strategies will need to be adapted for different sizes of organizations.

Section 1 : Do you have a small, medium or large organization. (NB : numbers of people alone are not the sole (or even main!) indicator.

A. How many adults are in your church or organization ?
B. Is your organization based on a single site? (If no, then think of your organization as having twice the number of people it actually has for the purposes of the thresholds given above.)
C. Add 25 for each clearly distinct part of the organization (eg service congregation, distinct functional area in distinct area with distinct management.)
D. Add 25 for each level in the organizational hierarchy beyond 2.

Take your final number and decide whether you have a small, medium or large organization using the following scale : Under 100 is small, 100 to 250 is medium, over 250 is large.

Section 2 : Your Leadership Involvement

Rate each of the statements below on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is never applies / strongly disagree and 5 is always / strongly agree.

1. I know each person in my organisation personally : their name, their strengths and their background.

2. My employees know me personally, my strengths and my background.

3. I personally approve all significant decisions in the organization.

4. Although I have ultimate responsibility for all of the major decisions, I delegate much of this authority.

5. Much of the "cement" holding the organisation together stems from employees having strong personal relationships with each other.

6. Our organization has a clear vision, shared values and a culture which is embraced by all.

7. The growth in our people's experience and capability is driven by what I delegate to them.

8. I have a personal interest in ensuring that people have new and challenging opportunities within the organization - everyone needs room to grow.

9. Opportunity to contribute to decisions comes from everyone knowing whats going on.

10. Personal contribution is driven by good internal communication and a culture of openness.

11. Processes are improved upon as we work together and spot what could be done better.

12. We set ourselves challenging goals on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of our working practices.

Pause for Thought : If you have scored highly on the odd numbered questions, your leadership style is very much in tune with a smaller organization. If you are leading a small organization, then fantastic! If not, you might like to reflect on whether your leadership style is too close to the detail for the organization you now lead.
The even numbered questions shouldn't be influenced by the size of the organization. It's important that the leader doesn't over-dominate an organization's culture, values and operating style. Again, this may give some different pointers for thought.