We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – to truly create trust in leadership the most effective approach is to listen more than you speak.
To do this well, leaders must continuously gather feedback from employees through anonymous employee surveys and take action based on the insights from their teams’ collective voice.
And that includes feedback about themselves…
It may be confronting for your managers and heads of teams to be the subject of a leadership survey, but you have to keep in mind that feedback goes both ways – and if you can consistently measure the KPIs and performance of your teams, you can certainly do the same for your leaders.
Leadership effectiveness plays a really an important part in overall employee engagement and satisfaction, so it’s seemingly obvious that to create a happier and more high-preforming team, you must measure and track how managers are influencing them.
By doing so, you will empower your leaders be as impactful and inspiring as they can be.
Gallup does plenty of insightful work into the effects of leadership and management on employee engagement, and over the years they’ve uncovered some interesting statistics:
We’ve seen plenty of feedback over the years from manager effectiveness surveys, and the answer is really simple.
Employees want their leaders to care about them, listen to their ideas, and support their growth.
They want clear communication, honesty, and accountability – someone who treats them with respect, values their contributions, and follows through on their promises.
Start by identifying key leadership characteristics that matter most to your teams and drive manager satisfaction – like communication, empathy, and trust.
Then, frame your questions around these traits, asking things like, “Does your manager listen to your concerns?” or “Do you feel supported in your professional growth?”
Keep your questions clear and easy to understand, mixing in both quantitative ratings and qualitative feedback and always avoid leading and double-barrelled questions.
Following these basic best practices will help you create leadership survey questions for employees that capture measurable insights to improve leadership effectiveness within your organisation.
Feel free to use these in your next leadership questionnaire for staff, or as a starting point.
These examples could be crafted as Likert scale or rating scale questions:
Most survey tools just give you data, Stribe gives you direction.
About the author
Starting out her early career as a journalist, Jade Madeley is an accomplished content writer with 8+ years’ experience across business, personal finance, SaaS, human resources and employee engagement. Working with Stribe, she crafts insightful content that brings complex HR topics to life and drives meaningful action.
