Role Ratings: Skill, Energy, Attention
Three quick self-ratings per role — Skill, Energy, Attention — to surface fit, fatigue, and load.
How it works
Open My Roles and click the rating next to any role you hold to open the Role Rating panel. Pick a level for each of the three. Takes about five seconds. You can also rate from the role list on Home. Click Show unrated only to see what's left.
Your rating is visible to you and to anyone who can see the role (full rules: Who can see your data ). Each rating is stored as a timestamped snapshot, so you can see how you've evolved in the role over time.
The three dimensions
Skill: "How capable do you feel in this role?"
- Learning — still building core competence
- Capable — can do the work reliably
- Expert — deep mastery; others come to you
Skill maps to Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's flow theory: a role feels good when skill and challenge balance. Far below what the role needs and you land in anxiety. Far above and you drift into boredom. Learning is useful signal — for coaches, for the person distributing work, and for the conversation about what's next.
Energy: "Does this role energize you?"
- Drains me — I dread it; it costs me to do
- Neutral — I don't mind it, but it doesn't fill me up
- Energizes me — I come alive doing this
Energy is the dimension most leaders forget to ask about. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (The Power of Full Engagement) show that energy, not time, is the currency of sustained performance. Marcus Buckingham (Now, Discover Your Strengths, Love + Work) defines a strength as capability combined with energy — not capability alone. A role you're skilled at but that drains you is a burnout risk. A role that energises you at Learning skill is a growth opportunity.
Attention: "Does the attention you give this role match what it needs?"
- Way off — the role gets far too little of my attention, or far too much
- A little off — a bit under or over what the role needs
- Just right — my attention matches the role's demands
Attention captures load. Every role-holder balances this role against every other role and every life thing. In Holacracy, people don't just hold roles — they energise them. When a role isn't being energised, the organisation needs to know, so it can redistribute or resource differently. Peter Drucker makes the same point in Managing Oneself: the scarce resource isn't time, it's attention.
Why these three
We looked at longer frameworks — purpose, values, 360s, competency matrices — and chose to keep this short. Three dimensions, three levels, five seconds. The Japanese concept of Ikigai maps onto them well. The aim is a shared vocabulary, updated often enough to stay true.
Combinations carry the signal:
Expert
Energizes me
Just right
Sweet spot
Expert
Drains me
Just right
Burnout risk
Learning
Energizes me
Way off
Growth opportunity
Expert
Neutral
A little off
Under-resourced
Role ratings vs. 360 feedback
Different questions, different answers.
Subject
A role you hold
You as a person
Who rates
You and your team lead
Peers you invite
Scale
1–3 on Skill, Energy, Attention
When
Anytime, on any role
A time-bounded round you initiate
Purpose
Self-signal of fit, role by role
Outside view of how you collaborate
Read together they tell a fuller story than either alone.
Who rates what
You rate yourself on every role you hold. Your team Lead adds their own view of how the role fits you, from Teams & Roles → My Team (see See your team's ratings ). Both views show side by side in your rating panel, each labelled with who gave it. The Lead's rating is visible to you, to Leads of your team and the teams above it, and to workspace owners and admins. Who your Lead is for each role is explained in Team Leads and empty roles .
If you rate yourself Expert / Energizes me and your Lead rates the same role Capable / Drains them, that's a conversation worth having.
Querying ratings from AI tools
If your workspace is connected via MCP , you can ask things like "Who rates their energy as 'Drains' on multiple roles?" or "For everyone in the People team, show their role-fit ratings alongside their most recent 360 feedback." The AI sees the same data you would.
References
- Mihály Csíkszentmihályi — Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience ( overview )
- Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz — The Power of Full Engagement ( HBR summary )
- Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton — Now, Discover Your Strengths
- Peter Drucker — Managing Oneself (HBR, 1999)
- Brian Robertson — Holacracy: The New Management System ( holacracy.org )