Key Insights from The Extraordinary LeaderThis week I am attending my third Extraordinary Leadership Summit in Park City, Utah. This Zenger Folkman annual conference is a wonderful time to reconnect with ZF’s great people and international partners. These conferences provide updates of ZF’s new and revised programs and services. They also feature Clients outlining their successful approaches, plans for further work, and challenges they’re working to overcome.

Zenger Folkman’s foundational research and approach is The Extraordinary Leader named after their highly acclaimed and bestselling book by the same title. Recently we published a white paper detailing these key insights from this seminal publication and body of work:

1. Great leaders make a huge difference, when compared with merely good leaders.
2. One organization can have many great leaders.
3. We have been aiming too low in our leadership development activities.
4. The relationship between improved leadership and increased performance outcomes is neither precisely incremental nor is it linear.
5. Great leadership consists of processing several “building blocks” of capabilities, each complimenting the others.
6. Leadership culminates in championing change.
7. All competencies are not equal. Some differentiate good from great leaders, whereas others do not.
8. Leadership competencies are linked closely together.
9. Effective leaders have widely different styles. There is no one right way to lead.
10. Effective leadership practices are specific to an organization.
11. The key to developing great leadership is to build strengths.
12. Powerful combinations produce nearly exponential results.
13. Greatness is not caused by the absence of weakness.
14. Great leaders are not perceived as having major weaknesses.
15. Fatal flaws must be fixed.
16. Leadership attributes are often developed in non-obvious ways.
17. Leaders are made, not born.
18. Leader can improve their leadership effectiveness through self-development.
19. The organization, with a person’s immediate boss, provides significant assistance in developing leadership.
20. The quality of leadership in an organization seldom exceeds that of the person at the top.

Click here to download a complimentary copy of An Overview of Key Insights from The Extraordinary Leader and read more about these points. Canadian readers can find links to purchase discounted copies of The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders from McGraw Hill through our book store. It’s also available as an e-book from Amazon, Apple, and other retailers.