38+ Sample Leadership Report

What Is a Leadership Report?

Besides being goal-oriented and influencing others to accomplish similar objectives, an effective leader knows herself/himself. And to avoid a biased assessment report, awareness works through different assessments may it be according to personal style, behavioral tendency, emotional intelligence, and other leadership styles. And this is where a leadership report becomes relevant—a reliable report in measuring a leader’s performance, considering the leader’s traits and interests, as well as documenting leadership data from start to finish.

According to Forbes, leadership performance can be evaluated in three ways—feedback, self-reflection, and setting a clear vision.

Also, it was reported that global leadership training investments reached up to $357.7 billion in 2020.

Why Is a Leadership Report Important?

A leadership report is like the official report card of leaders in a particular organization. So if team members in a company will be assessed according to their productivity, attendance, contribution, or overall performance, there should also be some factors to assess among leaders. And it is important since it promotes fairness in evaluations. Thus, leaders are not exempted from being judged. They also need to be corrected if wrong. Also, leadership isn’t taken lightly, especially when the global leadership training investments reached $357.7 billion. That is, according to Training Industry’s 2020 research survey.

Most importantly, leadership reports bring awareness to how leaders have performed. They also need a wake-up call if they spearheaded effectively or poorly. And the best part is that a leadership report isn’t mainly to criticize leaders. Instead, the report promotes a leadership development plan. After pinpointing a leader’s mistakes, flaws, and other concerns, a leader will eventually be taught or learn about every resolution to improve their performance in the future. And such improvements can improve the relationship between leaders and members to work altogether efficiently.

What Are the Elements of a Leadership Report?

Indeed, leadership reports are helpful to assess, scrutinize, identify, and improve leaders. But what exactly is inside a leadership report? It is known that a standard leadership report contains the following significant elements:

Title: It should be obvious that the document or worksheet you use as the leadership report should have the self-explanatory title—leadership report. The title marks the conspicuous introduction of what your document is wholly about, which is to evaluate leadership performance.Leader’s Details: Before evaluating or reporting about any leader, it is crucial for the document to state who is being assessed in the first place. Hence, you should write down the leader’s complete name, position, contact details, and other elements to identify the leader. And this part confirms whose leadership is being recorded.Leadership Statement: An important part of a leadership report is the leadership statement. Also known as the leadership philosophy or personal leadership statement, this statement identifies and defines the overall purpose of being a leader. It answers the vision of what a leader is, what leadership means for the organization, what values or beliefs are being observed as a leader, and even how the leader spearheads others.Criteria: A leadership report won’t be complete without the full breakdown of criteria for judging. Without detailed and organized criteria, it gets difficult to assess leaders properly. Just like evaluation forms, the criteria are divided into categories. So instead of having a whole master list, you can categorize the criteria according to personal style, driving abilities, specialized abilities, vocabulary, etc. Or perhaps, you organize based on traits like physical, social, emotional, communication, experience, and more. And what the categories are would depend on your report’s goals and preferences.Rating System: Evaluators may have different ways to calculate scores and there should be a clear rating system to follow to prevent confusion. Otherwise, it would be weird if evaluators used a graphic Likert scale but the report’s format suggests having a numeric rating scale. Think of what system is relevant for judging and which is more effective in tabulating results.Score Interpretation: As the categorized criteria and finalized rating system make evaluating convenient, you also need to follow it up with the score interpretation. Score interpretations summarize what every score in the rating system means. Hence, each score holds a different meaning about leadership performance or data.Attached Files: In case the details written in the leadership report need evidence or supporting documents to be approved, be sure to attach those credible supporting files properly too. For example, someone who needs proof that the leader does poorly in terms of attendance can have her/his question answered by incorporating the leader’s official attendance sheet in the report.Personal Feedback: Sometimes, there needs to be a thorough explanation rather than an automatic or broad score interpretation. And this is where personal feedback ensues. Just like feedback forms, there should be room to write personal observations but still evaluate objectively. This feedback may help leaderships recognize their strengths and weaknesses, as well as ways to improve their performance next time.Improvement Plan: All the takeaways for leaders to perform better in the future lead down to the detailed improvement plan. Hence, don’t just end the report by giving scores. Instead, give suggestions or recommendations to further develop leaders until they can ace a more efficient leadership someday. This way, leaders can study the improvement schemes until they master the recommended solutions. And the best part is that the improvement plan not only helps leaders but also every member or individual in the group; thus, giving a win-win learning experience.Name of Evaluator and Signature: The common way to close a leadership report is to log the evaluator’s name and affixed signature at the bottommost part of the document. This section confirms who evaluated and even who prepared the leadership report. Although some companies prefer anonymous evaluators, standard leadership reports require names and signatures for proof.Notes: Leave a few extra spaces for possible notes. Notes can be used for any function, including a statement if the report is confirmed or not, a tabulation of the leadership training budget, and other purposes.

How to Make a Leadership Report

A leadership report can be tough to pursue. But it won’t be the case when you organize and plan the process appropriately. In fact, six steps can already suffice. So without further ado, here are the steps on how to create a proper leadership report:

Step 1: Lead the Way in Identifying Concrete Objectives

What is your purpose for making the leadership report in the first place? Be sure to identify and define your report’s concrete objectives to come up with a guide on what to observe afterward. The statement of purpose is even useful for the leadership statement later on. And these objectives give a smooth flow to the whole process. For example, you could settle on measuring a camp leader’s performance for the summer. Hence, your leadership report shouldn’t involve data that is irrelevant to that purpose.

Step 2: Conduct an Assessment Plan

Besides writing objectives and goals, putting those theories into action is part of the deal. And to increase the success rate of the actual evaluation later on, produce a clear assessment action plan. This whole strategic plan is responsible for how to manage the evaluation of the leadership report. Remember that without an evaluation, your leadership report might not contain enough data to rate a leader’s performance. Thus, take planning seriously and start figuring out what to do until the last part of the report.

Step 3: Use a Sample Leadership Report of Choice

Making leadership reports has never been made easier, thanks to the sample templates listed in this post. Every sample leadership report is ready for editing, printing, and downloading. So take this opportunity to craft reports without working on them from scratch. Premade and preformatted templates are even useful references in case you want to learn how a basic leadership report looks like in pronto. Be sure to personalize it however you want until the output is just like how you planned it.

Step 4: Outline the Leadership Report’s Elements

Title, leader’s details, leadership scope statement, down to the notes section—make sure to add the elements of a leadership report to complete your report. Of course, your report would not be detailed enough without the criteria, feedback, and other essential elements. Also, you can add more elements that you think are necessary for the report. And arrange these elements accordingly so you come up with an easy-to-follow document.

Step 5: Balance an Informative Yet Concise Report

The challenge lies in how you wrote the report. And the best advice is to maintain an informative yet straightforward leadership report. Maybe you ended up making a lengthy narrative essay outline but it missed discussing the crucial details. Don’t keep it wordy. A direct-to-the-point approach is much better as it is short and easily understandable. And if you want leaders and specific audiences to understand the message behind the report, then be sure to adjust your tone and vocabulary that is fitting to them.

Step 6: Evidence Always Matters

You already know that supporting documents or attached files are needed for leadership reports. And the same can be said about any other reference or source that brings evidence. Maybe some leaders refuse to believe that their performances were dismal and concrete proof can definitely give them the answer. And once you got everything covered, conduct a final review until you are confident enough to submit an error-free leadership report.

FAQs

What are the best ways to evaluate leadership performance?

Besides the leadership report, leadership performances can be evaluated through feedback, self-reflection, and setting clear visions.

What are the basic leadership skills?

The following are common leadership skills every leader should master:

  • Setting a vision
  • Crafting strategies
  • Inspiring others
  • Monitoring results
  • Being approachable
  • Mentoring people

What are the types of leadership?

Leadership is known to have six types. And these are autocratic leadership, democratic leadership, bureaucratic leadership, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and laissez-faire leadership.

The intricacies of leadership lead down to the shared vision, smart goals, and objectives of the whole team. But at the end of the day, leadership is not as basic as simply giving orders or being nice to team members to get good leadership feedback. In fact, being a successful leader isn’t something to be done overnight. Hence, give room for new learnings, constructive criticisms, personal feedback, and other helpful data to enhance one’s leadership skills in the best way possible—which is just what leadership reports promise you.