“Corporate leadership development programs aren’t working. Less than a quarter of executives at the organizations that have them think they’re effective.” These conclusions are from a report published in the November-December issue of Harvard Business Review. The authors trace the main source of these dismal results to using unproven and ineffective leadership development approaches. The […]
Read post »Would you like to help your leaders increase employee engagement by up to 8 times, double or triple their motivation to implement a personal development plan, build coaching and leadership skills around natural strengths, make performance appraisals an inspiring event people look forward to, and double rates of improvement from 360 feedback? As farfetched as […]
Read post »“We all have our boss horror stories. The underminer. The bad communicator. The credit hog. The snake. Then again, if we’re lucky, we’ve all had those amazing bosses as well — the supervisor who encourages all employees to take their work up to the next level; the manager who makes everyone around them look better.” […]
Read post »With e-mail in-boxes burying managers in hundreds of e-mails while they rush through a blur of meetings, speed is essential to effectiveness — if not survival. Zenger Folkman recently analyzed 360 assessments on over 50,000 leaders to understand how speed impacts evaluations of their effectiveness. A “speed index” was created to measure speed in three […]
Read post »Would you like to move beyond building individual leaders to building a culture of exceptional leadership and coaching in your organization? Are you concerned about succession planning, deepening leadership bench strength, cultivating teamwork, recruiting top talent, increasing retention and engagement, improving customer service, safety and wellness, and increasing sales and profits? These critical issues are […]
Read post »Recently Zenger Folkman correlated assessment data from three organizational levels to look at the cascading impact of senior leader effectiveness on their direct reports and in turn on the next level below them. The study found that managers who worked for the worst executives had awful engagement levels in the 24th percentile. However, managers working […]
Read post »Boss A cares about your issues and concerns, leads by example, gives honest and helpful feedback, coaches and develops you, and builds teamwork and trust. Boss B has high standards of excellence, pushes and stretches you and your team beyond what you thought was possible, relentlessly focuses on top priorities and goals, and drives hard […]
Read post »Over the past few months we’ve been writing about the profound payoffs of leader likability. Our research clearly shows that likability correlates directly with a leader’s effectiveness and the results he or she produces (see “Demanding Leaders Are Much More Effective – and More Likable” ). So how can a leader increase his or her […]
Read post »I’ve delivered hundreds of leadership workshops over the past few decades. Until our partnership with Zenger Folkman, these sessions were based on “timeless leadership principles” that encouraged participants to build their improvement plans around the weaker areas to round out and expand their leadership skills. That meant focusing on weaknesses. Last week I delivered another […]
Read post »The American Society for Training and Development recently asked 10 “of the biggest names in the industry” to weigh in on the past, present, and future of the profession. ASTD’s conclusion from this input was “the need for skills development, the importance of learning and development, and the link between employee performance and organizational success […]
Read post »Leadership likability has many meanings. And the implications go much deeper than whether a leader has lots of “Like” button clicks. Zenger Folkman’s research shows that leaders who score high on the Likability Index are also rated as being highly effective leaders by their direct reports, peers, manager, and others. These ratings correlate to sharply […]
Read post »With last week’s death of the “Iron Lady,” former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, many world leaders and commentators looked back on her forceful and charismatic personality. Charismatic leadership is a popular media stereotype of strong leadership. As much as I’ve enjoyed reading Fortune magazine for the past few decades, they keep adding to this […]
Read post »“I don’t care about being liked, I just want to be respected,” is a statement repeated by many less than extraordinary leaders. Trapped in either/or thinking, these narrowly-focused leaders often push hard for results while leaving a trail of damaged relationships and enervated people scattered behind them. Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, is perpetuating a related […]
Read post »click to enlarge In his introduction to The Extraordinary Coach: How the Best Leaders Help Others Grow, bestselling leadership author and executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith, points out, “a leader who is an adept coach can greatly enhance the organization’s success; one who dabbles and doesn’t take the process seriously can cause harm.” Marshall’s insight […]
Read post »Last week’s two blogs on leadership competencies generated some stimulating discussion and feedback on the promise and problems of this popular approach to leadership development. Given the central importance of this issue to leadership and organization development, both blogs are now available as a white paper. Click on Leadership Competency Models: Why Many Are Failing […]
Read post »My last blog post looked at how Why Many Leadership Competency Models Are Failing. This post looks at what has been learned over the decade of implementing the Strengths-Based Leadership Development System. Jack Zenger, Joe Folkman, and their team have compiled a huge body of research on the best practices for developing and effectively using […]
Read post »Most progressive organizations today are using leadership competency models to outline the key skills and behaviors they want to see in their supervisors, managers, and executives. Leadership competency models can provide a structured framework for defining and developing those behaviors that have the biggest impact on an organization’s performance. Used effectively, they become a roadmap […]
Read post »Last week I was facilitating a two-day development retreat with a management team in Western Canada. We were discussing Zenger Folkman’s powerful research on the statistical correlations and interactions of leadership behaviors. I wrote about this evidence-based leadership approach last month in Leadership Cross-Training is Powerful and Revolutionary. This research has led to a very […]
Read post »In the 19th century “snake oil salesmen” travelled throughout North America selling unproven or fraudulent oils, elixirs, and various cure-all remedies. In 1906 the US Pure Food and Drugs Act began to regulate medicines. This was followed by decades of research into drugs, vaccines, public health regulations, and medical treatments that dramatically reduced and even […]
Read post »How to Be Exceptional couldn’t come at a better time. We’re standing at a very critical crossroad. Our organizations desperately want and need much stronger leadership at all levels. But a torrent of studies show most leadership development approaches aren’t working. We need a better way. We’re also at the intersection of powerful and revolutionary […]
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