Performance Appraisals & Phrases For Dummies®

Chapter 12. The Best Phrases for Leadership

In This Chapter

• Identifying and enhancing leadership skills

• Strengthening the capacity to energize others

• Spotlighting skills that build individuals as well as teams

Leadership is about influencing others to reach established goals. As such, it's one of the most critical roles in any company. Leadership maintains the vision, values, culture, objectives, and standards for the company, and when leadership is in doubt, the company is in trouble.

As a result, accurately appraising the leadership skills of anyone who plays a leadership role is critical. This stretches from upper management all the way to employees who have no formal leadership titles but carry out occasional leadership functions, such as chairing a committee or running an event. If you look at all your employees, you'll see that many of them have leadership responsibilities, regardless of their titles.

Leadership isn't a one-dimensional behavior that's either present or not. Instead, it's an amalgam of many functions — including such leadership-related responsibilities as motivating employees, building employees' skills, providing feedback, screening and hiring, managing conflict, coaching, making decisions, delegating, and more — all of which need to be reviewed as part of a thorough performance appraisal.

In light of the critical role that leadership plays in any organization, choosing the right words in the appraisal process is important — not only for the success of your employees, ...