Diagnostic
The Leadership Test
Six questions to run against every member of your leadership team. Four test the job; the last two test whether this is actually a team.
Most leadership teams are a collection of department heads reporting in parallel. Strong functional executives can pass the first four questions and still fail the last two — and the last two decide whether you have a leadership team or a status circle.
Do they understand and champion the company strategy?
Not "can they recite it" — do they sell it to their own team, unprompted?
Does their area have a strategy that flows straight from the company's?
And visibly serves it. If you can't draw the line from the company strategy to their plan, neither can they.
Have they built the team and systems that make success likely?
The job is building the machine, not being the machine.
Do they embody the culture?
The company copies its leaders. Whatever this person does under pressure is the real values deck.
Is the company their first team?
When their function's interest and the company's interest split, which do they choose? Watch what happens in resourcing fights.
Would you fight to keep them?
Netflix's keeper test (Reed Hastings & Patty McCord): if they resigned tomorrow, would you fight to change their mind?
The agreement that makes it a team: 80% commitment, 100% alignment. You might be only 80% sold on a decision after the debate — outside the room you defend it as if it were your own idea. Argue hard inside, one voice outside.
Run it quarterly, per person, honestly. A no isn't a firing — it's a development conversation with a named gap. But a no you keep re-scoring for a year is an answer too.
Source / credit
Outstride original — question six borrows Netflix's keeper test (Reed Hastings & Patty McCord)
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