I once heard physician and leadership guru Dr. Eddie Erlandson say, “At the end of the day, we all just want to be more effective.” An excellent point.
A number of years ago McKinsey & Company (a multi-national consulting firm), conducted a study of leadership effectiveness that included responses of 189,000 folks, from around the world, and from all kinds of organizations. You can read about it HERE.
The researchers identified 20 key practices of effectiveness:
- Be supportive.
- Champion desired change.
- Clarify objectives, rewards, and consequences.
- Communicate prolifically and enthusiastically.
- Develop others.
- Develop and share a collective mission.
- Differentiate among followers.
- Facilitate group collaboration.
- Foster mutual respect.
- Give praise.
- Keep groups organized and on task.
- Make quality decisions.
- Motivate and bring out the best in others.
- Offer a critical perspective.
- Operate with a strong results orientation.
- Recover positively from failure.
- Remain composed and confident in uncertainty.
- Role model organizational values.
- Seek different perspectives.
- Solve problems effectively.
Interestingly, they also found that the four displayed in bold font above account for 89% of the effectiveness of the leaders of the highest performing organizations.
Note to self…
*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.
