Environment
Reading. Your lowest reading is the environment. It is not an excuse.
Your lowest reading is the environment. Your energy is holding, or holding well enough, and you want the work. What scores lowest is the system around you: you are not sure what you are being judged on or you do not agree with it, you have been told to improve without being told how, and the people above you would not notice if you stopped working evenings.
This is the reading leaders find hardest to trust, because it sounds like an excuse. "It's not me, it's the environment" is what people say when they have not looked at themselves. So look at your me bar and your Fit bar first. If they are both in reasonable shape and the Environment bar is the outlier, the test is telling you something specific: you are a capable leader who likes the work, in a place that is not giving you what a capable leader needs to do it.
Being told to improve without being told how is the clearest single sign of that, and it is the line people repeat most when they ask "is my manager the problem, or am I". Unclear success measures are the second. A leader can carry either for a while. Carrying both for a year produces a Depleted reading, and by then it looks like a you problem.
My view is to give it one honest quarter of trying specific things, with a date in your calendar to decide. Three things I ask a client to try first. Say out loud what you need from this place, to the person who can give it, instead of waiting for someone to notice.
Ask for one decision right you do not have today, and see whether it comes. And find people outside the building to think with, because inside it you will talk yourself in circles. If none of that moves anything by the date, the environment has answered you. Leaving at that point is not giving up. It is taking the answer seriously.
What to do this month. Two conversations. The first is with whoever you report to: "What am I being judged on this year, in one sentence?" If they cannot answer, you have your evidence. The second is with yourself: what would this environment have to give you for the score to move, and is that available here.
This is not a clinical result. If the environment includes anything that feels like more than poor management, the note below is the right place to start.
Next step: leaders in this reading often have nobody outside the building to think with. That is what a peer group is for. See the CEO mastermind or, for the coaching option, the executive coaching cost index.
Next step
This test is not a diagnosis and cannot replace one. It is a coaching tool, written for people who lead others, and it does not measure any medical condition.
If the last few weeks have been more than tiredness, if sleep has gone, or if you have stopped caring about things you used to care about, please speak with a doctor or with someone you trust. A coach is not the right first call for that. Your national health service or a helpline in your country comes before any page like this one.
When I think a client needs more than coaching, I say it plainly: see a doctor first, and we will pick this up when you are ready. Coaching starts where there is frustration and a wish to move, and it is not built for someone who is worn down in a way that rest does not fix. Sending you to the right person first is the most useful thing I can do.
The other results
- SteadyYour energy is holding. Watch the bars, not the score.
- DepletedYour lowest reading is you. It is the most recoverable one.
- Wrong SeatYour lowest reading is the seat. A preference, not a failure.
About this result
This is one of 4 results from the Leader Burnout Test: burned out or wrong seat, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.