Let $G$ be a Lie group whose Lie algebra is $\mathfrak{g}$ with exponential map $\exp:\mathfrak{g}\to G$. For what kind of Lie group $G$ the standard process of definition of rotation number for circle homeomorphisms work well? Namely for every homeomorphism $f:G\to G$ there is a homeomorphism $F:\mathfrak{g}\to \mathfrak{g}$ with $\exp\circ F=f\circ \exp$ and the limit of $$\frac{F^n(x)-x}{n}$$ as $n$ goes to infinity exists? >This limit as an element of the Lie algebra would be called the rotation element. What is a precise example for which this process works (other than $S^1$)? Is it equivalents to the [exponential to be a covering map](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3190787/when-is-exponential-map-from-lie-algebra-to-lie-group-a-covering-map)? **The motivation:** I was thinking of a possible generalization of Poincaré-Birkhoff theorem as follows: We have an area-preserving diffeomorphism on $[0 1]\times G$ where $G$ is a Lie group. On the boundary we get two rotation elements as described above. Now assume that the Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ consists of matrices and we may assume that these rotation elements are invertible with opposite sign determinants. Or we may assume that a reasonable linear functional, say trace, separate these two boundary rotation elements. Then we may state the Poincaré-Birkhoff theorem in this new setting and think to its possible validity.