Ask Your Leader to Define the Criteria of Success Before Beginning Any Role, Assignment, or Initiative

Expectations between leaders and team members can prove more elusive than many people think. 

Nothing is more infuriating to team members than reaching the end of an assignment they believe has been successfully completed only to learn the leader is disappointed with the outcome. This reality often occurs even when expectations have been discussed and clarified. 

All of this is because there is a difference, in any project, role, or assignment, between what needs to be accomplished and the ultimate criteria of success.

Best practice would suggest a team member and leader sit down and explore the details of any initiative before the work begins. This discussion commonly includes timelines, resources, responsibilities, and metrics.

Clarity in expectations is the key. Once both parties are on the same page, the team member can now get to work and operate according to plan. But this isn’t enough. 

While expectations are future-oriented, they are formed in a start-to-finish pattern. They often follow a chronological order of what happens at each point in the project. Such clarification is essential but often misses what the leader really has in their head regarding the project's end state. This is where articulating the criteria of success becomes so important. 

Asking a leader to work backward from a successful endpoint, including a careful description of the triumphant finish, creates a very different kind of clarity. 

When asked to articulate the criteria of success, leaders get the chance to reflect on what a great outcome looks like and normally lay out those features and qualities that define a terrific conclusion. In doing so, it is also common for them to speak to what should not occur and be included in the definition of success. This might include resources that shouldn’t be used, people that shouldn’t be involved, and information that shouldn’t be offered until the appropriate time. 

No one can read the mind of a leader to know what they really expect from a role, project, or initiative. The smart call for any team member is to clarify expectations and request a discussion about the criteria of success before the assignment begins. 

This simple but powerful clarity will often prevent disappointment for both parties at the end of a project or when measuring the effectiveness of a new role. Avoiding unnecessary distress at the end of an assignment can depend on achieving this clarity. Don’t start a project or accept a new role without it.