First things first.  Look at the chart below from SplatF on market share for smartphone platforms over the last 6 years (email subscribers click through for the graphic, it's worth the click). 

Translation.  Nothing is forever.  You think the pecking order is set, then some snot nose kid (Google with Android in this case) started from the bottom and is suddenly not only here, but is #winning.  Google just shipped their billioneth (is that a word?  It is now..) copy of Android.  Billion, not million, homeslice.

The chart grabbed me. It reminded me that when it comes to engagement, satisfaction or whatever you call it, we really don't use scoreboards enough.  I think it's probably time for every company to start publishing some type of employee satisfaction metric in every business operations review they do, whether that's monthly, quarterly, etc.

Now - it's probably a little too aggressive to throw trending lines up for indivdual managers, but I'd say the chart above is a good guide for how macro to go.  In any company, business unit, etc, you've got different functional areas represented.  Start measuring engagement or employee sat and then break it out by department and start trending it over time.  

Here's a couple of things that would happen:

1. You'd get an accute awareness of the impact of good leadership teams on employee sat.

2. You'd have a much better understanding of whether A**holes can get results over time with employee sat scores in the gutter.

3. New leaders taking over departments in the gutter of this measurement would have a new metric to understand their impact (and put implied pressure on them to get results in a way consistent with progressive leadership).

4. Great conversations would happen related to support departments being easier to gain high employee sat (finance, HR, etc) while the departments under true numbers heat (sales, marketing, customer service) would beg forgiveness because the whip and intimidation are just part of the job. I'm not sure where that conversation would do, but I'm sure it would be healthy.

5. You'd see the impact of great hires at the line manager level across their first year in the job. 

I'd start a trending chart for engagement levels/employee satisfaction by department/functional area today and let your freak flag fly.

Sure, some feathers would get ruffled.  Who cares?  How many true scoreboard levers do you have in HR?