The extraordinary leader zenger folkman pdf

PRAISE FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY LEADER

“The Zenger Folkman leadership model is distinguished from others in that it is backed up by research and data. That data validates the effectiveness of identifying an individual’s strengths and developing them, rather than focusing on weaknesses. The Zenger Folkman philosophy has its eye on the right goal – real, measurable results.”

—Bill Blase Senior Executive Vice President

Human Resources AT&T Corp.

“I fell in love with The Extraordinary Leader on page 1. From the moment I started reading I really got jazzed, and my enthusiasm only increased the more I read. You see, I’m just mad about books that attack cherished but unsupportable assumptions about anything, especially leadership. That’s exactly what Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman do, and they do it persuasively, precisely, and professionally. The Extraordinary Leader is no hackneyed rehashing of tired nostrums. Through their exceptional research, the authors demonstrate and prove that leadership does make a difference and that you can learn to lead. There are some profound insights in this book, and whether you’ve studied leadership for over 20 years, as I have, or you are brand new to the subject, Zenger and Folkman give you much more than your money’s worth. And while their research gives the book distinctive credibility, their examples and practical applications give it life. This is a book that scholars and practitioners will be referring to for years to come.

If your goal is to be a better leader than you are today, then you must read this book.”

—James M. Kouzes Chairman Emeritus, Tom Peters Company

Coauthor of The Leadership Challenge and Encouraging the Heart

“Joe Folkman and Jack Zenger have proved themselves to be extraordinary thinkers. In their new book, The Extraordinary Leader, they unfold the most intriguing and provocative new research on leadership that I have encountered in many years. This book is a ‘must read’ for anyone faced with the day-to-day challenges of developing extraordinary leadership talent within an organization.”

—Annie LaBombard Director of Leadership

Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company

“Read this book! Its approach to understanding leadership development is unique: It uses data, not opinion! Some of the insights are intuitive, but many are counterintuitive. Extraordinarily readable, this book represents some of the best thinking on leadership I’ve seen in a long while.”

—E. David Spong President, Military Aerospace Support

The Boeing Company

“Ordinarily, I’d say the last thing we need is another book on leadership. But The Extraordinary Leader by Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman is refreshingly different. Rather than serve up yesterday’s anecdotes, they’ve performed the heavy lifting of empirical data collection and analysis. The foreword promises clarity, simplicity, and utility in addressing the real-world challenges of developing leaders, and this book delivers that and more. This is a must read.”

—Jon Younger, Ph.D. Senior Vice President, Leadership Development

National City Corporation

“The authors’ promise on the bottom of page 3 to do their best ‘to unravel the mystery of leadership through careful analysis and observation’ of a huge

database ‘by emulating Sherlock Holmes,’ grabbed my attention. Always an avid mystery reader, I found myself compulsively turning pages, devouring the entire book, like any good mystery, in one sitting. I especially appreciated the wisdom found in Insights 1 to 20, the nonobvious competency companions, and the distinctions between mattress and tent leadership models. By the last chapter (when all at last had been revealed), I had deduced a far better way to help my organization become a company of leaders than I’ve been able to figure out in the past 20 years!”

—Sallie T. Hightower, Ed.D. Conoco University

Conoco, Inc.

“Finally someone has moved beyond theory and complicated models to tell us what great leaders really bring to the party. Zenger and Folkman have effectively summarized data on 20,000 leaders that help us understand what really makes leaders tick. Any serious student of leadership will both enjoy this book’s journey and walk away with useful new insights that will help them and others.”

—Ralph Christensen Senior Vice President, Human Resources

Hallmark Cards, Inc.

“This book has changed the way I think! If you want to move from good to great as a leader, don’t focus on a weakness; instead, take a strength and build on it. Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman have written an important book, full of insight and based on sound research. It will shape the way we help our clients develop executives.”

—Douglas D. Anderson Founder and Managing Partner

Center for Executive Development–Boston

“This is a ‘must read’ for coaches, leaders, and those who develop them. The Extraordinary Leader goes beyond anecdotes or ‘war stories’; it builds upon comprehensive research. It is destined to be a classic in our field.”

—Marshall Goldsmith Named by Forbes as one of five top executive coaches and one of the

Wall Street Journal’s “Top 10” executive educators

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TH E EXTRAOR DI NARY LEADER

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COMPLETELY REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION

TH E EXTRAOR DI NARY LEADER

R

T U R N I N G G O O D M A N A G E R S I N T O G R E A T L E A D E R S

JOHN H. ZENGER & JOSEPH R. FOLKMAN

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We dedicate this book to the thousands of leaders who courageously seek feedback from colleagues in their quest to improve their leadership skills. They set a laudable example by rising out of their comfort zone and working diligently to become better leaders.

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CONTENTS FOREWORD ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii INTRODUCTION xvii

CHAPTER 1 DEMYSTIFYING LEADERSHIP 1

CHAPTER 2 GREAT LEADERS MAKE A GREAT DIFFERENCE 29

CHAPTER 3 SIMPLIFYING LEADERSHIP 51

CHAPTER 4 THE COMPETENCY QUEST 81

CHAPTER 5 LEADERS MUST FIT THEIR ORGANIZATION 107

CHAPTER 6 GREAT LEADERS POSSESS MULTIPLE STRENGTHS 131

CHAPTER 7 FATAL FLAWS MUST BE FIXED 149

CHAPTER 8 NEW INSIGHTS INTO LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT 167

CHAPTER 9 A CASE STUDY IN LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT—

THE U.S. MARINE CORPS 191

• vii •

CHAPTER 10 WHAT INDIVIDUALS DO TO BECOME GREAT LEADERS 213

CHAPTER 11 DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP TEAMS 231

CHAPTER 12 THE ORGANIZATION’S ROLE IN DEVELOPING LEADERS 239

CHAPTER 13 MEASURING LEADERSHIP IMPROVEMENT AT GENERAL MILLS 263

CHAPTER 14 THE IMPORTANCE OF FOLLOW-THROUGH 267

APPENDIX RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 277

ENDNOTES 287

INDEX 293

viii • Contents

FOREWORD Today’s business climate demands leadership throughout the organization. The Extraordinary Leader draws on data from more than 200,000 individuals who have rated more than 25,000 leaders to show how leaders can go from being good to being great, from being average to being extraordinary. The book focuses on the top 10 percent of leaders, as defined by their stakehold- ers. These leaders are exemplars and should become the standard to which others aspire.

The Extraordinary Leader both complements and advances the work we began in Results-Based Leadership. In that earlier work, we argued that lead- ership is a combination of attributes and results, but we focused there on the “results” side of the equation; in this book, the authors emphasize the “attrib- utes” side of the equation and thus move toward a more complete picture of leadership. To this end, they are applying the logic from Jim Collins’ excellent work on how organizations can go from good to great performance on the per- sonal side of leadership. Rather than seeking quick fixes that don’t last, this book proposes a leadership science that will offer sustaining and enduring lead- ership value. The book successfully links these two approaches together, show- ing how the attributes that make a difference to subordinates and peers are exactly the ones that produce better results for the shareholders.

Leadership requires both attributes and results. There are two ways to dis- cover these attributes. First, find those attributes that drive financial and other results. Second, use “360-degree feedback” to define attributes that are right “in the eye of the beholder.” Such 360-degree instruments help leaders deter- mine what is expected from those they lead. They help leaders know the intended attributes that mean the most to those being led.

This book is informative because of its rich and thorough content, and it is useful because it contains ideas with impact, which will help leaders become seen as extraordinary by their associates. It links perceptual data with hard, quantitative business results, including unit profitability, retention sta- tistics, customer satisfaction, and employee commitment measures.

• ix •

An important message of the book is that leaders can change. Leaders can go from being good to being great, from being seen as adequate to being seen as extraordinary. The process for getting from good to great may differ some- what for each person, but there is a pattern. This pattern enables leaders to discern what they need to do to deliver more value.

The book offers a plethora of content and new ways to think about leader- ship based on both research and experience. It gives the reader multiple per- spectives of leadership, but amidst all that complexity, the book promises simplicity. The authors give the reader a conceptual framework by which to understand leadership attributes. Their “tent” model is a powerful way to describe leadership. I believe most readers will appreciate this graphic depiction of an extremely complex (and sometimes obtuse) subject. Further, the model moves beyond simply describing leadership to also describing ideal leadership development methods—expanding strengths versus dithering about weaknesses. The authors emphasize that the best way to raise a tent is to extend the poles skyward, not to go looking for the drooping piece of canvas and propping it up.

One test of a business book is how it informs practice and action. The observations made in this book will have impact when they change how lead- ers think and/or behave. With this in mind, let me share what I would advise a leader to do, based on the ideas in this book. I assume that this leader wants to move from being good to being extraordinary, from being seen by subordi- nates, peers, and supervisors as average to being in the top 10 percent in a 360-degree feedback or similar exercise.

• Display high personal character. Everything about great leadership radiates from character. Personal character improves the probability of exhibiting strong interpersonal skills. Some of this perceived character is innate and based on a personal value set; but more is driven by the leader’s self-awareness and interactions with others.

• Start small. Going from good to great follows an “S” curve of learning. Starting small means doing something now, something within your control that will have immediate impact. As small things cumulate, bigger things will happen. A leader should identify some quick, simple, and readily visible things that can be done along the “S” curve path.

• Excel at something. The worst leaders (34th percentile, or bottom third) have an “average” profile, with no great strengths or weaknesses. They are vanilla leaders, not standing out on anything. The impact of one perceived strength moves leaders to the 64th percentile, and three

x • Foreword

strengths moves them to the 81st percentile. My advice to you as a leader is to figure out what you are good at and improve it to the 90 percent level. Be good at something, then a few things.

• Connect competencies and leverage combinations. You are a better leader when you connect competencies and see the power of combinations. For example, leaders who are highly competent at Focus on Results and Interpersonal Skills have a powerful combination. With a single strength in Interpersonal Skills, only 9 percent are at the 90th percentile. With a single strength in Focus on Results, only 13 percent are at the 90th percentile. With a combination (both Interpersonal Skills and Focus on Results perceived as strengths), 66 percent are at the 90th percentile.

• Use a nonlinear approach to becoming a better leader. For example, if you get lousy feedback on technical skills, the best approach may not be to work on improving your technical skills. The authors’ proposal for competency companions suggests that it may be in your interest to improve your interpersonal skills as the best way to improve the perception of your technical skills.

• Build on your strengths. Figure out what you do well and magnify it. It only takes strength in a few (two to four) attributes while being average in the rest to achieve a high probability of being seen as a great leader. So, a leader needs to build on strengths. Find what you do well, then find the combination of competencies that you should do well to be seen as more effective.

• Remedy fatal flaws. The authors provide data showing that these are an inability to learn from mistakes and develop new skills; being interpersonally inept; being closed to new ideas; failure to be accountable for results; not taking initiative. Assess yourself and see how others assess you on these five fatal flaws. If any show up, work on them fast and furiously.

These suggestions are just the beginning of ideas with impact that you can draw from this book. However, these ideas represent the content that may help you as a leader to move from being good to being great. In the context of today’s organizations, applying these ideas will not only help leaders improve but also help organizations become more competitive.

Dave Ulrich

Foreword • xi

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book began several years ago as I was walking down the hall looking over some statistical output and bumped into Jack Zenger. Jack’s question was, “Are you doing anything that’s interesting?” My response was, “Funny you should ask, look at this data.” What began as a fascination with some statisti- cal analysis grew into a compelling body of evidence that modified substan- tially the conventional wisdom people have about what makes great leaders and how they develop.

To anyone who reads a number of books on leadership, it becomes appar- ent that more than 90 percent of what you read has been said before. The packaging is different, the examples amusing, but fundamentally there is lit- tle that is new. I had no interest in writing that kind of book. Our approach was to do rigorous research and then formulate a theory to explain the results. In presentations on our findings to clients, we have been very pleased with the “Ah-ha’s” that are apparent as we present the insights from our research. I am hopeful that readers of this book will have a simi- lar experience.

One of the most interesting findings from our research is something called “powerful combinations.” A powerful combination occurs when leaders com- bine two unique skills, which results in a substantial increase in overall effec- tiveness. In thinking about the process of getting this book written, I am very confident that neither Jack nor I could have accomplished this research and written this book alone. The combination of Jack’s experience, knowledge, and conceptual skills with my research, measurement, and change manage- ment background created a very powerful combination.

Working through the laborious and demanding process of writing this book with Jack has been an absolute delight. I am grateful for his patience, gentle persuasion, and persistence.

Many people contributed substantially by doing research and editing on the book. Thanks to both our colleagues, staff members and clients for their contributions and suggestions.

• xiii •

As is always the case with projects such as this, it was impossible to pro- duce record revenues, carry a full client load, write a book, and manage my responsibilities as a husband and father. It was my wife and family who gave up the most and voluntarily carried an increased load. I appreciate their will- ingness to do so very much. I recognize in them much that is extraordinary.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my clients. I am extremely grateful to brilliant clients in a broad range of industries. Universally, they are dedicated to improving organizations and the individuals who work in them. They are continually looking for ways to make people more successful. The data, which is the foundation on which this book is built, came from them.

Joe Folkman

As a relatively young boy, I worked at the hospital for which my father was the administrator. From him I learned much about leadership and the challenges of being the senior executive. His relentless pursuit of improvement and will- ingness to abandon systems that were working for the promise of something better were great examples to me.

My academic interests in leadership began at UCLA as a research assistant in the Human Relations Research Group. I appreciate the tutelage of Robert Tannenbaum and the late Irv Weschler. Then at USC came an association with Bill Woolf, who exposed me to a sociologic and anthropologic view of leadership. Many others influenced my thinking, including Mel Sorcher, the creator of behavioral modeling training in industry.

I had many colleagues at Zenger-Miller who influenced me, beginning with Dale Miller, Steve Mann, Ed Musselwhite, Bob Sherwin, and dozens of others. Their association enriched my thinking about leadership and simul- taneously helped build an extraordinary company. To them all I express appre- ciation. I wish to thank my current colleagues who not only make the organization run smoothly but also are the genesis of countless good ideas. I could not ask for a more dedicated group with whom to work.

I would never have imagined that I’d be writing a book with a statistically inclined organizational psychologist. Joe Folkman’s academic interests have been quite opposite from mine, but the experience has been extremely posi- tive. Differences were quickly and painlessly resolved. The book is something that neither of us could have done alone.

xiv • Acknowledgments

Finally, I extend my deepest appreciation to my combined family. From our children, their spouses, and many grandchildren have come great lessons in leadership, along with opportunities to apply some of what I have learned. To my wife, Holly, I express special thanks. Besides being a good critic of what- ever I write, her organization of our life together creates the time and environ- ment in which it is possible to write a book.

Jack Zenger

Acknowledgments • xv

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INTRODUCTION “What will I gain from reading this book?”

“Will it be worth the effort I expend in plowing into its contents?” “Will there be a good return on the time I invest in reading and studying it?” “What about this book is different than other books on the subject of

‘leadership’?” Those are justifiable questions. The more you know about our objectives

and the nature of this book, the easier it will be for you to arrive at good answers to those questions. Purchasing any book lightens your purse or wal- let a tad, but the real investment is not dollars. Reading any book consumes an extremely valuable commodity—your time.

We had three primary objectives in writing this book. First was simplicity. We insisted that the book provide a clear, understandable message. Nothing is more irritating than to read a book on a topic of great personal interest and then close the book and not be able to summarize the book’s point of view or basic thesis. We do not expect everyone to agree fully with all the conclusions we put forth.

But agree or not, this book contains a simple model of leadership, our answer about whether leadership can be developed, how leadership can be developed by individuals themselves, and what organizations can do to develop leaders. We present a case study of an organization that successfully transforms people into effective leaders. We present 20 insights, many of them new ideas, about leadership. These create the framework of the book.

Our second objective was that the contents be actionable. We do not expect that every idea in the book will be something you can implement immedi- ately; but success for us will be your ability to take a great portion of our find- ings and be able to do something with them. We believe that real learning shows up in new behavior.

If this book is a serious vehicle of learning, then the way to measure its value is via the new actions you take. In leadership development programs, there is the perennial plea to the instructors for “What do I do on

• xvii •

Monday morning?” Books on leadership should meet the same test. Most recommendations are ones that mere mortals can use comfortably—on Monday morning.

Our third objective was that the book be empirical. We insisted that it be based on hard data, facts, and statistical analyses. Huge sets of data were the touchstone to which we constantly returned.

Frankly, we tire of books by executives and business writers that primarily express personal philosophies and beliefs, especially when they are so incon- sistent. The discipline of leadership and those committed to developing lead- ers inside organizations surely deserve better. Our standard was to have every conclusion grounded in objective data. The combination of hard data and statistical analyses were to be the point of the spear. It then became our task to make sense of the data and to put logical explanations around our findings.

We welcome feedback from readers. The topic deserves a great deal of dia- logue from all of us who are concerned with the future of our great institu- tions—universities, schools, hospitals, government agencies, and businesses. These all need leaders to flourish. Our hope is that the information that fol- lows will in some small way aid in the development of those much-needed leaders.

xviii • Introduction

1

DEMYSTIFYING LEADERSHIP

Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on Earth.

—J. M. Burns

The aura with which we tend to surround the words leader and leadership makes it hard to think clearly. Good sense calls for demystification.

—John Gardner

The Mystery Remains While we were seated at a dinner table recently, it became known that we were writing a book. A dinner guest immediately inquired, “What is the book about?”

“It is about leadership,” one of us replied. Without hesitation the guest inquired, “Do you really think people can be

developed into leaders? Aren’t they born that way?” (We’d like to have a dol- lar for every time that question has been asked of us over the past decades.) The question seems as hardy as cockroaches or crocodiles. People in general have that query at the tops of their minds and so do a lot of CEOs and pub- lic organization leaders.

And the question is really in two parts. If the question is answered using the popular party line that says, “Of course you can develop leadership in

• 1 •

people,” the immediate follow-up question is, “How do you do that?” It is to those two basic questions that we address this book.

Does the world need anything more written on the subject of leadership? On the one hand, it could be argued that the answer is a loud “No!” Consider the fact that more than 10,000 articles have been published about leadership in the past century. Whereas some are based on research, most reflect the personal opinions of the authors regarding leadership, derived from their own experiences or their observations of leaders. Many are written by successful business executives and reflect their own beliefs about what made them successful.

Add to that approximately a thousand research studies that have been conducted on leadership and published in scholarly journals. Then add nearly a thousand books that have been written about leadership over the past 100 years. Many of these were written by practicing leaders, and others were writ- ten by academicians and consultants who sought to explain this important role that some people perform. Given that immense body of literature, it would seem futile to add yet one more book.

The Reasons for One More Book Despite that extensive literature, leadership remains shrouded in mystery. Rather than making the subject clearer, one recognized leadership expert, Warren Bennis, summed it up by saying “the more that is written about lead- ership, the less we seem to know.”

Regarding the enormous number of research studies that have been con- ducted, another respected scholar observed, “The results of many of these studies are contradictory or lack any clear conclusion.”1

How Mysteries Are Solved? There is an astonishing description of one approach to solving a mystery in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic Sherlock Holmes tale.

The Sign of Four. Dr. Watson remarks to Sherlock Holmes, “I have a gold watch in my possession. Would you have the kindness to let me have an opinion upon the character or habits of the late owner?” Watson was testing Holmes and attempting to tone down his arrogant manner. Holmes then com- plained that because the watch had recently been cleaned, he was robbed of

2 • The Extraordinary Leader

the most useful data. But after carefully examining the watch, Holmes then proceeded to tell Watson a series of hypotheses about the owner. These included:

● The watch belonged to his older brother, who inherited it from his father.

● He was a man of untidy habits. ● He had gone through a period of poverty, with intervals of prosperity. ● He had taken to heavy drinking before he died.

Watson sprang from his chair and accused Holmes of having made inquiries into the history of his unhappy brother and then pretending to deduce it from his observations of the gold pocket watch. He concluded by saying, “It is unkind and, to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism in it.”

Holmes proceeded to explain how he had come to each of his conclusions by simply observing important data and seeing their implications. The initials on the watch’s back, “H.W.,” suggested a family member, and gold watches usually were passed from father to the elder son.

The watch was 50 years old. The initials appeared to be as old as the watch, and so it was most likely the father’s watch, passed to Dr. Watson’s brother. The owner’s untidy habits were revealed by the dents and scratches that came from carrying this expensive watch in the same pocket with other hard objects such as coins or keys. Inside the case of the watch were scratched in pinpoint the numbers of a pawnbroker’s ticket, suggesting that the owner had gone through a period of dire poverty. The fact that he regained possession of the watch would imply that he also had periods of prosperity. The owner’s drink- ing problem was revealed by thousands of scratches around the keyhole where the winding key had slipped and scratched the case. Holmes noted, “That is characteristic of a drunkard’s watch, not a sober man’s.”

Solving the Mystery of Leadership Our hope is to take an enormous amount of data collected about and from leaders and, through careful analysis and observation, begin to unravel the mystery of leadership. We will do our best to emulate Sherlock Holmes. It would seem that if careful attention is given to the clues that lie inside huge databases, the continuing mystery of leadership might be penetrated.

Demystifying Leadership • 3

Our objective is to provide the reader with an empirical analysis of leadership, a simple and practical conceptual model of what leadership is, and a practical guide to helping leaders develop “greatness.” Our approach and understanding comes from our analysis of hundreds of thousands of leadership assessments from the direct reports of leaders, their peers, their bosses, and themselves. We let our findings guide our development of a practical theory.

Because together the authors have roughly three-quarters of a century of experience in leadership development, we were surprised that the research changed some long-held beliefs about the nature of leadership and how best to develop it.

The Complexity of Defining and Describing Leadership, or Why the Mystery Exists Everyone recognizes the challenge of trying to solve any problem that con- tains multiple unknowns. That is precisely the problem in trying to solve the leadership dilemma. There are at once a significant number of unknowns, and many of them are constantly changing.

Sixteen of those variables are described below.

1. There are differences in the leadership behaviors and practices required at different levels of the organization. What we need from a CEO or the secretary of the Defense Department is different than the leadership requirements of a night-shift supervisor at McDonald’s.

2. Leadership occurs in extremely diverse environments. Some leadership produces prescribed results in a relatively defined and established organization. Such leadership may speed a product to market or escalate the revenue from a sales force, but it is not conceiving new directions or strategies for the organization. Other leadership is exhibited in a start-up organization in which there is no structure or form, and the leader must create it from scratch.

3. Different skills are required at different stages in a person’s career. The research on career stages shows that people’s careers go through very predictable stages. Early on, people start as apprentices, learning some

4 • The Extraordinary Leader

new discipline. They then move to become more independent in their work. From there, some people move into managerial positions in which they oversee the work of others or move from a narrow focus on their own work to a broader focus that involves coaching others to develop skill and expertise. Finally, a handful of people become pathfinders and visionaries who lead broad-scale organization change and are the “statesmen” of their organization. Career stages are easily confused with organizational levels, but they are not identical. People who are promoted into managerial positions often continue to function as professional, individual contributors. They revert to the work they find most comfortable and never take on the role of coach, mentor, or director of others. They continue doing technical work at which they are highly proficient. However, the stage of a person’s career is another variable of the leadership equation.

4. Leadership is driven by major events. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York was catapulted into the national limelight because of his handling of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Prior to that, his career had been waning. Churchill had sought several leadership positions, but it was not until the events of Dunkirk that his talents were recognized. Through World War II he was a premier leader, and then when the war was over, his countrymen voted him out of office. When a friend suggested that this was a blessing in disguise, Churchill growled back, “If it is, the disguise is perfect.”

5. The activities of leadership are not all the same. For example, not all leaders are required to “lead change.” Some leaders spend a great deal of time on people-development activities, whereas others are riveted to the operational or production elements of their roles.

6. We confuse success and effectiveness as the general benchmark of leadership. If success is measured by dollars and titles, that is clearly not the same thing as effectiveness, or truly producing the results that the organization needs. We believe this is probably best measured by the feedback from subordinates who experience that leadership. Much of the research on leadership makes no distinction between success and effectiveness.

7. We lack agreed-upon measures, so it has been frustratingly difficult to get agreement on who is a good leader and who is not. We lack robust measures of leadership effectiveness and especially have no

Demystifying Leadership • 5

comprehensive measures that track the leader’s impact on customers, employees, organizations, and shareholders.

8. We have not taken into account the evolving nature of leadership. That is, we have analyzed leadership around the characteristics that are required for success or effectiveness today but have not given much attention to the competencies that will be required in the future. Thus, much of the leadership analysis and development has been “looking in the rearview mirror” and not looking out over the horizon.

9. There has been no way to define the different constituencies of the leader. Thus, if a leader is in charge of “Baby Boomers” born from 1945 to 1955, this would call for some different values, motives, and skills than if the leader was responsible for a group of “Gen-Xers” born from l975 to 1985. That complexity is now compounded with “Generation Y,” those born from 1986 to 2000, and the soon to come “Generation Z,” born in 2001 and beyond.

10. Still another variable is whether the leader is operating alone versus acting as part of a leadership team. Clearly there are organizations in which one person plays an extremely dominant part and exercises control and influence over the big issues, along with the day-to-day tactics. Other organizations have a leadership team that acts in concert. In some cases, a formal “office of the president” has people who act quite interchangeably in the organization.

11. A further dimension is the impact of technology. Effectiveness in some organizations would demand a high level of comfort with the latest computer and information technology, whereas others would tolerate a leader who could neither send nor receive e-mail. New technologies exist to conduct virtual meetings, and in some organizations a comfort and familiarity with such technology would be a “must.” A Dell Computer employee reported, “My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the file I gave her was corrupted and she could not edit it. The PDF file I gave her was ‘read only,’ but all she had to do was copy it into a word-processing program and make the corrections.”

12. A new dimension of leadership is one of geography. Some leaders interact with a virtual team, whereas others have their staffs on-site.

6 • The Extraordinary Leader

This can be even further complicated by the fact that groups are often scattered across widely different time zones, thus making the leadership task even more complex. For example, holding meetings at one point in time can be cumbersome.

13. Another variable is the wide variety of leadership styles used within different organizations to motivate and inspire the front line. Some of the best research in this regard comes from Jon Katzenbach and is described in his book Peak Performance.2 In that book, he describes firms that were extremely effective and successful but that used very different approaches to getting high performance from the people within. He described five of these:

● Mission, values, and pride. In this approach, the organization immerses everyone in the traditions, the spirit, the core values, and the mission of the organization. This in turn generates great pride, and people produce at high levels because of that pride in the organization. The U.S. Marine Corps is a good example of this.

● Recognition and celebration. Many organizations he studied practiced extensive recognition for their people and went to great lengths to celebrate successes. Southwest Airlines is a classic example of this approach.

● Process metrics. Many organizations post detailed charts showing productivity and quality metrics for every department. People are trained to understand these metrics, and the organization’s success is measured and rewarded by performance against these metrics.

● Individual achievement. Other organizations excel by allowing individuals to accomplish extraordinary things. Organizational effectiveness is the addition of all these excelling individuals. Professional service firms function this way, and McKinsey and Company is a good example.

● Entrepreneurial spirit. Still another approach to motivating people to high performance is to let them enjoy a huge financial stake in the potential success of the firm. Many high-tech start-ups have relied on this appeal to someone’s entrepreneurial spirit, and this has enabled such organizations to excel.

This is a good example of the complexity of leadership. All five of the above approaches work well. One is not right and the others wrong.

Demystifying Leadership • 7

What could end up being “wrong” is for a recognition and celebration leader to attempt to function that way in a process metrics organization. Chances are the organization would reject such a leader as the human body rejects any foreign substance implanted in it.

14. Who decides those who are good leaders? We have been unclear regarding who is in the best position to evaluate leadership effectiveness. Organizations have often relied on performance appraisals from the level above to evaluate the effectiveness of a leader. We have studies from several organizations showing absolutely no correlation between performance appraisals and their 360-degree feedback instruments. Yet the research for past decades has shown that subordinates were in the best position to appraise any leader’s effectiveness. Research in the military proved that having the enlisted men select sergeants was more effective than having higher-ranking officers make those selections.

15. Several “companions” of leadership effectiveness have clouded the issue. For example, all of the following have been shown to have some correlation to leadership effectiveness: ● Intelligence, as measured by IQ scores ● Physical characteristics, such as height ● Emotional or personality characteristics, such as assertiveness and

outgoingness ● Biochemical characteristics, such as testosterone levels in men

Because some correlation exists between these elements and leader- ship effectiveness, there has been a logical temptation to assume there to be a cause-and-effect relationship. At the same time, there was high interest in such conclusions from those responsible for leadership selec- tion; the above elements did not help further the work of those con- cerned with development.

16. Language has an impact. Is the lack of adequate language partly responsible for the mystery that surrounds leadership? The Inuit (or as some call them, Eskimos) have some 23 words to describe snow. They can describe its hardness, texture, moisture content, color, age, and crystalline structure with their richer vocabulary. We, on the other hand, have roughly three words at best, as we talk about powder, slush, and corn snow. It is possible that if our vocabulary were more precise and robust, we could better succeed in describing what

8 • The Extraordinary Leader

leadership is and how to more effectively develop it. Given our current condition, leadership is still nearly impossible to define or describe in detail or specificity. However, as Professor Karl Weick has suggested, any idea can be “simple, general or accurate, but never all three.”3 We will strive to be general and accurate, but not specific. That appears to be the best way to improve our understanding of this most important topic.

Research-based Book Our hope is to present a way for people to think about leadership in a highly practical and yet simple way. We will not review the past literature on lead- ership. Others have done that. Nor will we dwell on the theoretical. Nor will we attempt to describe all of the tasks or activities of leaders. Others have done that also. Instead, we want to present a way for you personally to think about your own leadership abilities and how you might go about increasing those, if you choose. And for those who have subordinates, we provide suggestions about what they and their organizations can do to develop leadership in the people who report to them.

We believe this is best done by examining a huge body of data collected about leaders from their peers, subordinates, bosses, and themselves. Rather than describe our personal beliefs and prejudices about leadership, we will turn to more objective data. We think it enables us to discover some profound insights into the real nature of leadership. Where mysteries still remain, we call that to your attention and pass on our beliefs.

To answer intelligently the question “Are leaders born or made?” and the sequel “If they are made, then how do you do that?” we begin by providing the reader with a model of leadership that becomes our operational definition of a leader. That model then provides a workable vehicle with which to describe a practical way to make good managers into great leaders. Later in the book, we present an example of an organization that has excelled at taking what some would describe as average people and transforming them into highly effective leaders. That organization is the U.S. Marine Corps. We also present a case study of a corporation that successfully develops its leaders and the compelling support this gives to developing strengths rather than weaknesses.

This book examines the leader as seen through the eyes of those being led (subordinates) and influenced (peers), of those who manage the leaders (the bosses), and of the leaders themselves. This process has become known

Demystifying Leadership • 9

as 360-degree feedback, because of its comprehensive view of a leader’s behavior, looked at from above, the side, and below. Indeed, we later describe our database of some 200,000 responses, using 360-degree questionnaires. We focus on the question: What do these three groups (subordinates, peers, and bosses) notice? What do they see in “great leaders” that sets them apart from the average ones?

Of those three perspectives, we conclude that the best way to understand leadership is to examine the impact leaders have on the people they lead. It is the subordinates’ view we value the most, because we believe they have the most complete and accurate data.

Peers and bosses see slices of a leader’s behavior, but there is good evidence to conclude that their perceptions are less accurate than those of the people who report to the leader.

We strongly believe that this comprehensive pool of data is far more powerful and accurate than information that would come from interviews of leaders themselves. As Michael Polanyi noted in his book Personal Knowledge, “most highly skilled performers in any activity, whether it be music, sports, or violin making, cannot accurately tell you what makes them so effective. Their behavior is often highly intuitive. You must actually observe them to accurately determine the true cause of their success.”4

This database of approximately 200,000 questionnaires completed by sub- ordinates, peers, and bosses about leaders collectively describes more than 20,000 leaders. They come from widely diverse industries. These leaders are from North America, along with many from Europe, the Pacific Rim, and South America.

To make our database and analysis more robust, we examined more than 25 different leadership assessment instruments. Rather than depending on the same set of assessment items for all 20,000 leaders, we examined a variety of different assessments, each built on different assumptions. This provided us with a database rich in diversity and helped give us a much clearer sense of what makes effective leadership and what doesn’t. All together, we included in our analysis more than 2,000 unique assessment items.

Research Methodology We began our analysis by identifying the top 10 percent of managers as seen through the eyes of their subordinates, peers, and bosses and compared them with the bottom 10 percent. The top 10 percent, with the highest aggregate

10 • The Extraordinary Leader

scores, became a high-performing group, and the 10 percent with the lowest aggregate scores were placed in the bottom group. Next we asked the question: What were the competencies or attributes that separated these groups?

We were surprised by the results that came from analyzing all of these data. It opened our thinking to some highly promising new ways to look at leader- ship and provided new directions in the ways we go about developing leaders.

Moving Complexity Toward Simplicity If you and 10 colleagues were asked to describe a computer, there would be some general consistency among the answers, but the answers would most likely focus on what a computer does, not what is going on inside it. Indeed, for most people, what goes on inside a laptop or desktop computer is a com- plete mystery. Most have never looked inside one. What’s more, you don’t need to. The output from the computer is all you care about; that can be spreadsheets, computer graphics, design simulations, e-mail, or simple word processing.

Many people know that there is a hard drive inside and roughly know its capacity. They also know there is a microprocessor, and they have some idea about its speed. They know there is some memory capacity and approximately what the RAM of their computer is. In short, they know some general things about it and what it produces.

That is the level of understanding that practicing leaders need to have about leadership. They do not need to know the details, but it is helpful to have some general understanding of the components that come together to make a great leader.

The Leadership Tent—a Conceptual Framework We propose approaching leadership in the same way. We will not add one more description of the inner character traits or thought processes of great leaders. The conceptual model we propose is rather simple and involves five elements, which we will compare with the poles in a tent.

Our empirical factor analysis of huge amounts of data collected on leaders’ competencies reveals that all vital and differentiating leadership competencies

Demystifying Leadership • 11

can be grouped into five clusters. For the sake of ease in remembering and analysis, we have created a diagram in the form of a tent floor (Figure 1-1) that shows the relationship of these building blocks to each other.

Character Our model in Figure 1-1 starts with a center pole representing the “character” of an individual. There is a huge body of writing on this subject. Indeed, some writers and researchers have argued that leadership is totally about character or integrity. We do not share that view, but we do agree that personal charac- ter is the core of all leadership effectiveness. We strongly concur that the eth- ical standards, integrity, and authenticity of the leader are extremely important.

With a strong personal character, the leader is never afraid to be open and transparent. In fact, the more people can see inside, the more highly regarded

12 • The Extraordinary Leader

Leading Organizational

Change

Focus on Results Character

Personal Capability

Interpersonal Skills

Figure 1-1 The Leadership Tent Floor

the leader will be. Without that personal character, on the other hand, lead- ers are forever in danger of being discovered. They are like a Hollywood set that from one side looks attractive, but after walking around it, the illusion is dispelled and the hollowness is obvious.

Personal Capability On one side of the tent floor is the pole of personal capability. This describes the intellectual, emotional, and skill makeup of the individual. It includes analytical and problem-solving capabilities, along with the technical compe- tence the person possesses. It requires an ability to create a clear vision and sense of purpose for the organization. Great leaders need a strong collection of these personal capabilities. Leadership cannot be delegated to others. The leader must be emotionally resilient, trust others, and be self-confident enough to run effective meetings and speak in public.

Focus on Results The third tent pole of leadership represents the behaviors that can broadly be described as “focusing on results.” It describes the ability to have an impact on the organization. It means being capable of getting things accomplished. We fully subscribe to the main thesis in the book Results-Based Leadership,5

which argues that leaders may be wonderful human beings, but if they don’t produce sustained, balanced results, they simply are not good leaders. We will later examine the interplay of these three elements as a powerful predictor of leadership effectiveness.

Interpersonal Skills The fourth tent pole of leadership puts into one cluster all of the interper- sonal or people skills. There is an enormous body of evidence that says lead- ership is expressed through the communication process and is the impact that one person (the leader) has on a group of other people. It is the direct expres- sion of the character of the individual and is often the window by which peo- ple understand the personal character of the leader. (Note, however, that leadership does not equal any one competency. It is expressed in a result. Yes, the competency is the tool or the manners in which that result is obtained. As such, it is worthy of understanding, but a competency is never an outcome,

Demystifying Leadership • 13

and leadership is ultimately about outcomes.) We have arbitrarily separated the leader’s impact on people from the leader’s ability to obtain good results in other arenas, such as financial outcomes, productivity improvement, enhanced customer relations, or greater organizational capability.

Leading Organizational Change Fifth, as noted earlier, another expression of leadership comes in the ability to produce change within an organization. The highest expression of leader- ship involves change. Caretaker managers can keep things going on a steady path, but leaders are demanded if the organization is to pursue a new path or rise to a significantly higher level of performance.

A key point here is that for many leadership roles, the first four tent poles may be all that are required. It is not until a person gets into leading broad, strategic change that the final tent pole is required.

An Overview of Important Ideas in this Book There are 20 insights presented in this book. The following chapters present further analysis of these ideas.

Insight 1. Great Leaders Make a Huge Difference When Compared with Merely Good Leaders We have known for some time that huge differences exist between top performers and average performers in any job category. One meta-analysis (a synthesis of some 80 well-conducted studies on productivity) showed that for high-level jobs (and leaders certainly fit that category), the productivity difference between the top person out of 100 and the great majority is huge. For example, the top person performing high-complexity jobs is 127 percent more productive than the mean average person and infinitely more produc- tive than the 100th person in that curve. The researchers said “infinitely” because the number was so large that it would be lacking precision to say anything other than “infinite.”

Our research with a large mortgage company showed that the leaders in the top decile of ratings (90th to 99th), as rated by their managers, subordinates,

14 • The Extraordinary Leader

and peers, produced twice as much net revenue to the organization (their term for profitability) as that of managers in the 11th through 89th percentiles. So the difference between really great leaders and the others is extraordinary. We have found strong statistically significant relationships between leadership effectiveness and a variety of desirable business outcomes such as profitabil- ity, turnover, employee commitment, customer satisfaction, and intention of employees to leave. In almost every study where we have undertaken to under- stand the impact of various dimensions of organizational effectiveness, lead- ership effectiveness has consistently had substantial impact. This is discussed in Chapter 2.

Insight 2. One Organization Can Have Many Great Leaders Being a great leader can be defined by selecting the top 5 or 10 percent from any distribution, but this is artificial. It was done for the sake of ease and objec- tivity in our research. However, greatness should ultimately be defined against a standard rather than merely comparing people against each other. There is no reason why half the leaders in an organization could not be great if they were developed properly. Better still, why not all? Great leadership is not a compet- itive activity in which one person’s success detracts from another’s success.

Four great golfers can play together and all four can come in 10 strokes or more under par on the course. If anything, playing with other great players elevates the play of each individual. Likewise, an organization can have large numbers of leaders performing at a high level and having positive impact on their people and producing excellent business results. The goal should be to have all leaders performing at an extremely high level, and there is no reason why this cannot occur.

Jack Welch’s legacy at GE was a strong emphasis on developing a large number of great leaders, many of whom went on to lead major divisions of GE, and some who left to head up other major corporations. Somehow we must change the mentality that holds that any organization can have only a few really good leaders. Chapter 2 covers this topic.