John Zenger and Joseph Folkman’s research into leadership is really exciting stuff. They have looked into what it takes for a leader to move from being a good leader to a great or extraordinary one. Their conclusions in The Extraordinary Leader draws on data from over 200,000 individuals who have rated over 25,000 leaders to show how leaders can go from being good to being great, from being average to being extraordinary.

You will resonate with the seven pieces of advice in Dave Ulrich’s preface to The Extraordinary Leader:

• Display high personal character. Everything about great leadership radiates from character.
• Start small
• Excel at something
• Connect competencies and leverage combinations. Joe Folkman, one of the authors says, ‘One of the most interesting findings from our research is something called “powerful combinations”. A powerful combination occurs when leaders combine two unique skills. Which result in a substantial increase in overall effectiveness’.
• Use a nonlinear approach to becoming a better leader
• Build on your strengths. On this point the suggestion made is to, “…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 out what you do well, then find the combination of competencies that you should do well to be seen as more effective”.
• Remedy fatal flaws

Thought this might interest you.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Book reviews, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.