It goes without saying that companies want to ensure clear metrics, goals, and communication strategies are in place to oversee fractional leaders’ work effectively.

But how do you do it?

How do you ensure that the investment you are making to have them help you steer your ship is money well spent?

There are five categories that we should address:

1. Quantitative Metrics
2. Qualitative Metrics
3. Client and Stakeholder Feedback
4. Return on Investment

Each has its benefits and drawbacks, and only you can decide which one works best for you and your organization.

So, let’s go through these one at a time.

Quantitative Metrics focus on things that can be objectively measured.

They can include:

1. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Achievement:

 KPIs might include revenue growth, cost savings, customer acquisition rates, or other relevant metrics. The trick is to define the KPIs that matter to you and how you measure them at the beginning of the relationship. If this is not clearly defined, you could be measuring success one way, while your fractional leader could be defining it another. This can lead to missed goals, focusing on irrelevant data and projects, and significant revenue loss.

2. Project Milestones:

Assessing if these projects are delivered on time, within budget, and meet the defined goals is a critical measurement. You brought the fractional leader on board because you have a specific issue or goal and do not believe you have the expertise or capacity to handle it in-house. Being clear on goals, timelines, and budgets and having ways to check in regularly to ensure everyone is on schedule and budget reduces surprises, missed deadlines, or budget overruns. 

3. Financial and/or Operational Performance:

Comparing these metrics to the period before the fractional leader’s engagement is critical to success. If you know your financial and/or operational realities prior to them coming on board, you have a line in the sand to measure against. 

When you and your fractional leader both understand where you have been, where you are, and where you want to be, you can dialogue about course correction in real time before problems become so severe that they cannot be rectified.

4. Customer Metrics:

Determining if there has been an improvement in customer feedback and loyalty can be a very good KPI.  Assessing changes in customer satisfaction scores, Net Promoter Score (NPS), or customer retention rates, for example, allows you to judge if the fractional leader has been effective in their role or not.

NOTE: Quantitative measurements must be under the control of the fractional leaders’ influence. Suppose they cannot reasonably control outcomes because they have no influence over those who operationally need to make changes underneath them to achieve success. In that case, it is almost impossible to hold them accountable.

Accountability comes from clearly defined and agreed upon expectations plus the ability to help control outcomes..

Measuring the success of a fractional leader involves assessing both quantitative and qualitative outcomes. Here are some of the best ways to evaluate their performance:

B Qualitative Metrics include how the fractional leader engages within your organization.

This can include:

1. Leadership Impact:

Assessing their ability to inspire, motivate, and develop the team.  This is done by gathering feedback from team members, peers, and stakeholders on the fractional leader’s leadership effectiveness.

Depending on the contract and the critical nature of the projects the leader is working on, I suggest doing this exercise more than once. This can be done formally, by using surveys, or informally, by checking in with those who engage with this leader over time. On the spot, anecdotal observations from team members will be more spontaneous and less measured, but you cannot rely on the responses of one or two people, as there may be conflict that is unresolved in a specific dynamic that can color results.

2. Cultural Fit and Adaptation:

Assessing their ability to navigate and influence the organizational dynamics positively by seeing how they fit in with the company culture. 

No one likes a bad boss who micromanages or sets unrealistic goals and timelines. Disgruntled employees are less engaged, perform less well, and are prone to look for work elsewhere.

For this reason it is critical that your fractional leader is a good cultural fit and this cannot be left to chance. Fractional leaders should go through your onboarding program just like any other employee.  They need to understand why you do what you do, your mission, vision and goals and what you value. If they do not, they cannot help you achieve any of these and become more of a hindrance than a help.

3. Strategic Influence:

Evaluate their contribution to long-term planning and vision alignment by measuring the fractional leader’s impact on strategic direction and decision-making.  

In short, do people value their opinion, trust them, listen to them and follow them.  As John Maxwell said, “a leader without followers is just taking a walk.” 

If they are developing strategies than no one is listening to, agreeing with or implementing, you have the wrong fractional leader.

4. Innovation and Improvement:

Evaluate any new processes, strategies, or ideas they have introduced by assessing their role in driving innovation and continuous improvement within the organization.

Are they developing new and innovative ideas or fostering those ideas within teams through empowerment?

A great leader does not have to have all the right answers, but they must know what questions to ask to enable others to reach their zone of genius.

C Client and Stakeholder Feedback

1. Client Relationships:

Nothing is more important, save your team members, than your clients. With that you need to keep in touch with clients through the process and make sure that they are being taken care of both by the fractional leader and the teams that lead. 

Not only is interviewing clients vital, but paying attention to how relationships grow or change with the fractional leader in play is also vital. Are you getting more and more profitable work from clients? Are their queries more complex and well-suited to your operational abilities, or are clients pulling back and possibly sending business elsewhere?

2. Stakeholder Engagement:

Assess the fractional leader’s communication effectiveness and stakeholder management skills by evaluating their ability to engage and align various stakeholders towards common goals.

Are they creating better alignment with stakeholders or not?

Knowing this can help you very quickly decide if this person is an asset to your organization or not.

D Return on Investment (ROI)

1. Cost-Benefit Analysis:

Calculate the ROI to determine the financial value they bring to the organization by comparing the costs of hiring the fractional leader to the benefits and improvements achieved.  

In other words, are you significantly financially better off having them onboard and paying their wages?

If the return on investment is marginal, you probably have the wrong person working with you.

2. Resource Utilization:

Assess the fractional leader’s efficiency in managing budgets, time, and personnel to measure how effectively they utilize company resources and optimize processes. If they are not utilizing resources effectively, they probably do not understand your systems, processes, and goals, which can lead to financial and human challenges.

It is critical to measure and monitor feedback continuously. This is your business, and whether it is a fractional leader or someone you have hired full-time, if you are unaware of challenges and pitfalls, you cannot rectify issues as they come up.

We advise against micromanagement as it is never effective and tends to create a bottleneck in systems that you are the cause of. However, being aware of situations before they become a problem allows you to have open and honest conversations that can easily and quickly rectify issues and put you back on the path of success.