Your KPIs Are Only as Good as Your Leaders: Why 57% Say Engagement is the Ultimate Threat

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are a common tool in the modern business practice. We create them, we track them, and we report on them. But are they truly working for us? Are they merely a set of numbers reviewed in monthly meetings, or are they the vibrant, beating heart of a culture of daily improvement?

To explore this question, we recently conducted a series of four LinkedIn polls, framing the discussion around a complete SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) of how teams use KPIs. The response was significant, with over 300 professionals sharing their direct experiences. The results paint a vivid picture: a clear understanding of what KPIs should be, a significant gap in their daily reality, a powerful consensus on where the greatest opportunities lie, and a stark warning about the single biggest threat to their success.

In the KAIZEN™ philosophy, KPIs are not an end in themselves. They are a fundamental pillar of Daily KAIZEN™, the system designed to change behaviors and embed a culture of Continuous Improvement from the top floor to the Gemba. They are the language that translates high-level strategy into meaningful daily action, empowering teams to answer a simple question in seconds: “Are we winning or losing?”

Strength: The Strategic Potential is Clear

We began by asking: What is the greatest STRENGTH of your team’s current KPI process?

The responses show that, at their best, KPIs are fulfilling their primary purpose: driving tangible progress and providing direction.

• Drives Continuous Improvement: 37%
• Aligns with strategic goals: 32%
• Provides a focus for the team: 18%
• Owned and managed by the team: 13%

The two leading answers, collectively representing nearly 70% of respondents, are incredibly encouraging. They confirm that many organizations successfully use KPIs to drive improvement and connect daily work to overarching strategy. The 32% who see alignment with strategic goals as a strength are likely employing a structured deployment method, akin to our “KPI Tree,” which cascades objectives down through the organization. This ensures that every team understands its role in the bigger picture.

More importantly, the top response—that KPIs drive Continuous Improvement—speaks to the ideal state. This is where a metric ceases to be a static number and becomes the trigger for the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. It’s the “Check” that initiates action, turning data into a conversation about how to get better.

However, the two lower-scoring options hint at the disconnect to come. That only 13% feel their KPIs are truly “owned and managed by the team” is a critical insight. It suggests that while strategy may be well-communicated, the frontline empowerment needed to act on it may be lacking.

Weakness: The Disconnect in Daily Execution

Next, we explored the challenges by asking: What is the biggest WEAKNESS in how your teams use KPIs today?

Here, the votes were more evenly distributed, indicating that the failure points for KPI systems are multifaceted and complex.

• KPIs are rarely acted upon: 31%
• Encouraging wrong behaviors: 25%
• Data is inaccurate: 23%
• Don’t reflect the team’s work: 21%

The top weakness, with nearly a third of the vote, is a direct contradiction of the KAIZEN™ purpose of a KPI. When metrics are rarely acted upon, they become organizational “waste”—time and effort spent collecting data for reports that gather digital dust. This is the hallmark of a “firefighting” culture, where teams react to crises rather than using data to solve problems at their root. In a Daily KAIZEN™ system, if a KPI is red, an action is not optional; it is the standard response.

The other three weaknesses all point to a fundamental flaw in design and implementation. KPIs that encourage the wrong behaviors, are built on inaccurate data, or don’t reflect the team’s real work are symptoms of a system designed in isolation from the Gemba. When KPIs are created in a boardroom without the input of the people doing the work, they will inevitably fail to capture reality and may even incentivize teams to manipulate numbers rather than improve processes.

Opportunity: The Mandate for Frontline Empowerment

A decisive and optimistic result came from our third poll: What’s the biggest OPPORTUNITY to improve your KPI effectiveness?

The response was overwhelming and unambiguous:

• Empowering front-line teams: 44%
• Coaching on problem-solving: 23%
• Better visual management: 21%
• A stronger link to strategy: 13%

With 44% of the vote, “empowering front-line teams” was the runaway winner. This is the very essence of Daily KAIZEN™. A culture of Continuous Improvement is not built by a handful of experts; it is built when every single team member feels a sense of ownership and is equipped with the tools and autonomy to improve their own work. Engaged teams are 3.6 times more likely to be involved in goal setting, and this result is a clear mandate from the community: trust your teams.

The next two opportunities – better coaching (23%) and visual management (21%) – are the mechanisms of empowerment. Empowerment is not simply telling teams they are in charge. It is giving them a visual system, like a Team Board, that makes performance transparent and instantly understandable. It is providing them with leaders who act as coaches, guiding them through a structured problem-solving process when a KPI indicates a deviation. A well-designed Team Board makes the data visible, and effective coaching builds the capability to use that data effectively.

Threat: The Single Point of Failure

Finally, we asked about the greatest risk: What is the greatest THREAT to your KPI system’s long-term relevance?

Just as with the opportunities, the community’s voice here was incredibly clear, pointing to a single, critical factor that outweighs all others.

• Lacking leadership engagement: 57%
• Resistance among employees: 16%
• Shifting business priorities: 15%
• Metric fatigue, data overload: 12%

With a 57% majority, “lacking leadership engagement” is identified as the ultimate threat. This single statistic explains why so many well-intentioned KPI systems wither and die. A KPI system is not a self-sustaining machine. It is a human system that requires constant energy, and that energy must come from leadership.

When leaders actively use the Team Boards during their Gemba Walks, when they ask questions about the data, and when they champion the problem-solving efforts of their teams, they send an unmistakable message: this matters. Conversely, when they ignore the boards and rely on separate reports, they signal that the Daily Management system is not the real system, and it quickly becomes irrelevant.

The other threats—employee resistance, shifting priorities, and metric fatigue—can all be seen as byproducts of this primary failure. When leaders are engaged, they coach employees through resistance. They ensure the KPI system is agile enough to adapt to new priorities. And by focusing on a vital few metrics, they prevent the data overload that leads to fatigue.

Conclusion: A System of People, Not Just Numbers

This SWOT analysis, powered by the experiences of over 300 professionals, tells a consistent story. Organizations recognize the strategic power of KPIs, but they are often failing to translate that potential into daily, frontline reality. The path forward is not through more complex dashboards or more metrics. It is through people.

The clear opportunity is to empower frontline teams, and the tools to do so are visual management and coaching. However, this entire system is fragile and will collapse under the weight of its own bureaucracy without the active, daily, and visible engagement of leaders at all levels.

In a true KAIZEN™ culture, a KPI is more than a number. It is the start of a conversation, the catalyst for a problem-solving cycle, and the evidence of a team empowered to take control of its own success. The journey begins when we stop seeing KPIs as a tool to report on the work and start seeing them as a tool to improve the work – and the people who do it.