The Art of the Metric
How leaders use metrics to create focus, motivation, and real impact
Metrics shape behavior. They influence how people spend their time, what gets prioritized, and how success is defined.
Choose well, and metrics create focus, clarity in decision-making, and momentum. Choose poorly, and metrics will distract, demotivate, or push effort in the wrong direction.
Great leaders use metrics deliberately: to clarify what matters, align daily work to meaningful outcomes, and tell an honest story about progress or challenges. Like any leadership skill, this one takes practice.
This article covers how to choose metrics more thoughtfully and leverage them as tools for learning, focus, and impact - both for yourself and for your team.
Recognizing Intentions vs. Goals
We’ve all heard statements like, “Improve client contact this year,” or told ourselves, “This year, I’m going to get healthy.” They sound motivating, but they’re not actually goals.
Why? Because they’re vague. When success isn’t clearly defined, there is nothing to measure, and nothing concrete to improve.
When fuzzy goals show up, it’s a cue that more clarity is needed.
Take “improved client contact.” That could mean talking to clients more frequently, or having higher-quality conversations, or seeing clients use your product more. Each interpretation points to a different measure of success and motivates very different actions.
The same is true for personal goals. “Getting healthy” might mean walking three times a week, sleeping seven hours a night, or eating more vegetables. Until you define what “healthy” means for you at this moment, you won’t make progress because you haven’t defined it (and if you haven’t defined the “what,” you certainly cannot track it).
The Art of the Metric - Lesson 1:
Turn intentions into goals.
When you replace vague resolutions with measurable definitions, teams gain focus, momentum, and a shared understanding of success.
Choosing the Right Metric for the Job
Not all metrics serve the same purposes.
Broadly, metrics fall into two categories: leading and lagging indicators.
Lagging indicators confirm what has already happened. Financial results like revenue, subscriber growth, or total clients served. They are important performance indicators, but they arrive after the fact.
Leading indicators act as predictors of future performance. In an established business, incoming leads may predict future sales. In content-driven environments (like right here on Substack!), consistent publishing habits may predict audience growth.
So how do you choose? It depends. Are you still learning what drives results, or are you focused on better executing those behaviors that you know influence performance?
If you’re figuring out what works, lagging indicators give you freedom to test and learn how to best achieve the goal.
For example, subscriber growth on Substack. When you’re experimenting with content or distribution, tracking subscriber growth keeps the focus on learning and creative problem solving without locking into one tactic too soon.
But once you know what reliably drives results, switch your focus. An outcome like “Reach 1,000 subscribers” becomes “Write Substack Notes five days a week.”
You can’t control who subscribes, but you can control showing up consistently with useful content.
The Art of the Metric — Lesson 2:
Loose metrics for learning. Tight metrics for execution.
When you’re unsure what drives results, measure to learn. When you’re sure, measure to build habits and get better every day.
Unintended Consequences and Motivational Tools
When pay, bonuses, or performance reviews are tied to a number, people get very good at hitting that number.
Because once a metric matters, behavior changes.
The risk is that people optimize for the metric itself and not the outcome you actually care about.
Measure a salesperson only on revenue, and they’ll sell what’s easiest to close, even if the company needs to push a new strategic product. Measure product managers on the number of client meetings, and you’ll get more meetings - not necessarily better ones.
Metrics shape behavior whether you intend them to or not. Without guardrails, they can quietly derail the very behaviors you need.
Before rolling out a metric, avoid unintended consequences by considering: If someone focused only on this number, what behavior would it encourage?
If the answer isn’t what you want, refine the metric’s definition and guardrails. Game the system on your own metrics or others will do it for you.
Metrics as motivation - people commit to numbers when two things are clear:
How their work influences the metric
Why the metric actually matters
Revenue growth isn’t just a finance goal - it funds salaries, programs, and investments. Meals served isn’t just a count; it represents families being supported. Even personal metrics work this way: more sleep makes it easier to show up well.
This is where metrics become a tool for alignment and momentum. When people understand both how they influence a metric and why it matters, motivation follows.
Art of the Metric - Lesson 3:
Metrics shape behavior. Design them with intention.
Before rolling out a metric, ask what behavior it rewards. Combine intentional guardrails with a clear why, and metrics become tools for alignment—not control.
When You and Others Share a Key Metric
You may hear: “Why am I being measured on something I don’t actually control?”
Totally fair.
Revenue is a classic example. People often say, “I’m not in sales—why is revenue in my goals?” While you might not be signing contracts with new clients, you likely contribute to that goal in meaningful ways.
Marketing fuels revenue through lead generation. Product teams contribute by launching or improving offerings. A finance analyst surfaces insights around new opportunities.
This tension shows up with many metrics: customer satisfaction, engagement, retention, foot traffic.
This is where your leadership judgment comes in. Strong leaders don’t reject big outcome-based goals just because they aren’t perfect.
They translate them into team or person specific metrics or behaviors their teams can influence.
They use metrics to connect everyday work to meaningful broader impact on the organization.
Metrics as Focus vs. Distraction
Metrics are meant to create focus, but too many will do the opposite.
Most people can realistically focus on one to three priorities at a time. That might look like:
One major initiative to launch
One core metric to maintain
One metric you’re actively trying to improve
Additional data still matters, but it shouldn’t compete with priorities.
For example, if your goal is to increase marketing leads, email click-through rates are useful context, not the headline. If the click-through rate dips, and you don’t know that it meaningfully drives leads, it should not suddenly become an additional priority.
More metrics don’t create more progress. Focus does. Choose the few that matter, and let the rest stay in the background.
When a Metric No Longer Serves
Sometimes a metric isn’t working. That certainly happens, but before changing course, assess: Is this truly the wrong metric or is progress slower than we hoped?
If a metric drives the wrong behavior, no longer reflects what you care about, or isn’t teaching you anything useful, it’s time to adjust.
But if the metric is sound and the work is simply hard, staying the course may be the right leadership call.
Metrics as a Leadership Practice
Metrics shape focus, behavior, and motivation. And the metrics you choose send a signal about what matters most.
Great leaders use metrics to translate strategic goals into something their teams can influence. They create meaning from numbers, so people understand not just what is being measured, but why it matters
Where to start? Pick one metric you have today and ask yourself: What behavior does this metric encourage? Does it reflect where I am putting my focus and energy?
If not, make one small tweak. And then another.
That’s how you start to turn metrics into a practical leadership tool, not a reporting obligation.