Demand inspiring leadership.

• Author: Zenger, John H.
• Position: READ FOR CPE CREDIT

If someone throws something at you, your natural instinct is to duck so you won't get hit. If you start to fall, you'll instantly grab something to steady the fall. Individuals are born with instincts. What natural instincts do leaders portray when challenging times arise? In the midst of turmoil, one natural instinct that arises within many is to pull back, act cautiously, conservatively circle the wagons and keep low to the ground.

Such actions are understandable. Each is completely logical. When things are uncertain and when there are psychological brick-bats being thrown your way, the tendency to duck and hide is probably instinctive.

But is that the best way to react during in these circumstances?

The trust of employees and society in the leadership of some sectors of the business community has been seriously eroded. Worse yet, in some cases it has been profoundly damaged. In such times, natural instincts are the least effective response.

Conversely, here's an entirely different approach--one that is based on recent research--for how leaders can impact the people within their organizations and the external clients they serve.

The Need for Inspiring Behavior

Data collected by the authors in 2002 documents research from a database of some 200,000 multi-rater feedback instruments (360-degree feedback) pertaining to some 20,000 leaders. This extensive database provided the ability to identify 16 leadership competencies that differentiated the highest performing leaders from the rest. Such data gives leaders new insights into the competencies that, when developed more fully, would enable them to become even more effective within their organizations.

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Many of those who were coached after completing the 360-degree feedback instrument created a personal plan of development by which to become a more effective leader. In doing that, a frequent question was, "On which of these 16 competencies should I focus?"

The research had conclusively shown that merely working on one's lowest scores was not the best way to proceed. For at least two-thirds of leaders, it was far more valuable to work on strengths than weaknesses. To which the question was often, "Which strengths?"

A second stage of research was launched seeking to find the one or two competencies that make the greatest difference. Several distinct tests were utilized to find this answer.

Which competencies best separated the top 10 percent of performers from the bottom 10 percent; Which competencies best separated the top 10 percent from those in the middle; Which competencies were most highly correlated with those leaders who had the highest scores on employee engagement and commitment; and which competencies were seen as being most important for a leader to develop in the eyes of the people who worked with that leader? What did they wish this leader did better?

Remarkably, the answer to all four of the previous questions was the same: The single competency that led the list in all four of the tests described above was: "Inspires and motivates to high performance."

This response led to further research and analysis of this leadership quality. The more it was explored, the clearer it became that of all the leadership characteristics one would seek in a leader, this one had extremely dramatic effects.

What Inspiring Leaders Do Differently

When people think about inspiring leadership the term that often comes to mind is "charismatic." Yes, it's thought, "inspiring leaders have that certain something about them; they have charisma."

This is said with a certain satisfaction, as if they've now explained what made this leader so effective.

On the other hand, what really is charisma, and how does it add to a leader's attributes? Asking 10 different people for their definition or description of "charismatic" will easily yield 10 different answers.

Reviewing the relatively little that has been written on the subject by scholars in the past 25 years still finds widely diverging answers. Most scholars will begin with the fact that the word's origin is Greek and it means a "gift" or to "favor," while some will...