Thanks to those of you who participated in our global Culture-Focused Leadership Assessment!
In May 2025’s SmartBrief post and video, I shared ratings by senior leaders from law enforcement and correctional services across the State of Maryland. In today’s post, we’ll examine ratings from SmartBrief readers.
Your organization very likely monitors traction on performance standards, what we call results expectations. What is rare today is for organizations to also monitor traction on values, standards or respect expectations.
This sample survey helps leaders learn how our company measures the degree to which formal leaders model desired valued behaviors in your workplace.
The first question asks if the respondent is a formal leader in their organization or not. The final ten questions present measurable behaviors derived from values many of our clients embrace: integrity, respect, service and excellence.
Each question is stated positively, describing how you want leaders to behave in your workplace. Team members rate each question on a six-point scale. The only desirable responses are at the 5-6 level: “agree” and “strongly agree.”
Since opening up this survey in May, 79 respondents have completed a majority of the survey items.
The survey item with the highest average rating is question eleven: “I am proud to work for my organization.” The average rating is 4.84 — close but short of the 5-6 average rating desired.
If these scores were for a real leader in your company, our analysis would note that almost 70% of respondents answered “strongly agree” or “agree.” That’s pretty good — but it means that just over 30% of respondents are NOT proud to work for their organization. That’s not good.
The survey item with the lowest average rating is question six: “Formal leaders in my organization hold every staff member accountable for both performance (results) and values (respect).” The average rating is 3.93 — nearly a full point below our highest rated item.
If these scores were for a real leader in your company, we’d note that just over 37% of respondents answered “strongly agree” or “agree.” That means that nearly 62% of respondents DO NOT believe this leader holds everyone accountable for both results and respect. That’s a problem.
We build custom values assessments for clients that use their formalized valued behaviors as survey questions. Each formal leader receives their own separate survey. That leader is rated by their direct reports and people they work with (their boss, peers, etc.) to ensure the feedback they receive accurately reflects how they behave in the workplace.
If you haven’t yet taken our online Culture-Focused Leadership survey, we invite you to do so. It’s fast and free! This new survey measures readers’ perceptions of how well leaders in their organizations model selected sample valued behaviors. No registration or fee is required. Your ratings are not attributed to you nor shared.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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