And that\u2019s when I realized there was a lesson here for leaders.<\/p>\n
Your position as a passenger is analogous to your role as a leader.<\/h1>\n
In both instances, you are setting the direction of the work and paying someone with the skill set to get you to your desired destination.<\/p>\n
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What Uber acknowledges in the passenger rating is that, in every ride, there are two parties<\/strong> having an experience. The driver affects your experience of the ride, and the passenger\u2019s behavior affects the driver\u2019s experience of the ride.<\/p>\n In the same way, how you act in your role as a manager\u2014in other words, how you lead\u2014creates a positive or negative experience for the people you lead. This is what I mean by your passenger score.<\/strong><\/p>\n What kind of leadership rating would your direct reports give you? Five stars? Five stars in every category? <\/em>It\u2019s harder to know than you\u2019d think, but there are ways to figure it out.<\/p>\n One way to determine your leadership rating is to do a 360\u00b0 survey.<\/strong><\/p>\n This kind of survey takes feedback from your direct reports, your peers, and the people you report to, along with a self-evaluation (you answer the same questions about yourself). If you do one, you may be surprised by some of the feedback. I was.<\/p>\n When I was a young CEO, I got 360\u00b0 survey feedback as part of a leadership program, and there were a number of questions in the survey about listening. In the self-evaluation, I answered honestly that I thought I was a good listener. I gave myself 4 \u00bd stars, but I really thought I was a 5-star listener. When I got my survey report, let\u2019s just say that my direct reports did not share my view of my listening skills.\u00a0 While I had rated myself high on listening, my direct reports rated me a few stars under.<\/p>\n What was highly interesting to me was what the other leaders in the program told me later. When I asked them about their 360\u00b0 results, they told me the same thing had happened to them. We had all<\/em> overrated ourselves on listening, and no one\u2014I repeat, no one<\/em>\u2014got an equal or higher rating from a direct report. <\/strong>Some of the other leaders said that they had overrated themselves on several of leadership competencies.<\/p>\n Ouch.<\/p>\n Despite not being what I wanted to hear, the feedback was good, and I took it to heart. With the help of this simple survey, I became aware that I needed to grow. I learned a process for active listening. I started to \u201ccheck in\u201d more as I was listening to people, just to make sure I understood everything they were saying. (Often, I learned I did not.) Now, I teach active and effective listening skills in every training program and speech that I give\u2014and I have for the past 20 years.<\/p>\n Just as an Uber driver wants to have a good experience getting passengers to their destinations, talented people want to have a good experience doing work for their managers.<\/p>\n You may find, as many leaders find today, that \u201ctalent is hard to find.\u201d But even if you find the elusive talent, the work doesn\u2019t end there. Your next job is to retain<\/strong> that talent. And talented people have the same freedom as Uber drivers: they can pick you up, or they can move on to the next opportunity.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you don\u2019t know your leadership score, my advice is to find out. Then, use that knowledge to become a better leader. Even if you don\u2019t have a formal leadership score, I encourage you to pause at the end of the day and ask yourself, \u201cDid I act in ways today that made a positive impact on those I lead?\u201d As Les Brown said, \u201cThere are 1,440 minutes in every day. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\nOur passenger scores are rarely exactly what we expect.<\/h1>\n
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<\/p>\nThe Uber passenger score reminds us that talent is a two-way street.<\/h1>\n