If you’re responsible for ushering in or facilitating leadership change in your organization, then you are what they call a “change leader.” As such, you should be thinking creatively (and pretty much constantly) about ways to engage all staff (paid and unpaid) in continuous dialogue about organizational culture in relation to leadership changes that are occurring now or will occur in the future. There are many ways to engage staff in this dialogue – team meetings, one-on-one consultations, anonymous suggestion/comment boxes, and an anonymous open-ended survey of the sort presented here.

When administering this survey, keep a few things in mind:

• It should be anonymous. You can use SurveyMonkey.com or some other free survey service that allows staff to respond openly and honestly without fear of backlash;
• Make sure you are prepared to compile and report the results promptly so that staff know they’ve been heard;
• When reporting results back to staff, be sure to remove any identifying indicators (e.g., a particular staff member’s “signature” phrase or way of saying something).
• Once you’ve shared the compiled results, have face-to-face meetings with staff to discuss the results and the implications for the path to finding/building new leadership for the organization.
• Re-administer this survey on a fairly regular basis, not just in times of crisis or massive change.