There are many ways to assess the characteristics and qualities of CEOs and their leadership teams. Smart people have put so much work into this area over the last 15 years that it’s changed from an art to more of a science.

I call it people mapping, and over the last 10 years I’ve measured hundreds of CEOs and their leadership teams’

• Energy level (from highest to lowest)
• Emotional management
• Worldview, or cognitive orientation in business and society
• Motivation
• Methods of interacting with others
• Emotional quotient

CEOs are often initially surprised by their results, then gain an acceptance and understanding of them and usually end up saying “so that’s why _____ (insert person’s name here) always does ______. Now I understand how to manage it.”

A Simple, 10 Second People Assessment That’s Free

But not every CEO has the bandwidth to commit to these types of people assessments. I’m a big fan of simplicity, and this morning David Feinleib, a partner at the VC firm Mohr Davidow Ventures, posted a great insight he took from Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open.

I used to be a competitive tennis player so I’m looking forward to reading the whole book, but I felt compelled to pass along an insight from his article. He talks about the importance of overcoming self-doubt, but what caught me was a statement from one of Agassi’s best friends:

Some people are thermometers, some are thermostats. You’re a thermostat. You don’t register the temperature in the room, you change it.

This is a simple and tangible way to think about you and your leadership teams’ abilities, and as David points out, you usually need to change the temperature in the room to deliver a great product, raise money and recruit great people.

There are numerous other nouns and verbs that describe a “temperature changer” type of person: a go-getter, a self-starter, a trailblazer, gumption, moxie, make-it-happen attitude, etc. But I haven’t heard an analogy as clear as this one that CEOs can use to have a simple understanding of the value their leadership teams bring to the table.

Mix of Thermostats and Thermometers

Take a look at yourself and your leadership team and identity the thermometers and the thermostats. Which one are you?

If you’re a thermostat, make sure you haven’t surrounded yourself with other thermostats and no thermometers. You need a balance to make your business run smoothly and build company value; otherwise, you’ll experience a constant state of change that will pull you in multiple directions.

If you’re a thermometer, don’t worry, it’s not a negative unless you’ve surrounded yourself with a team of thermometers. It is important to have someone to register the temperature.

But you must have someone who can change it.