Page 127 - The extraordinary leader

104 • The Extraordinary Leader

Poor performers:
● Make day-to-day decisions based on internal needs rather than the
needs of customers
● Do not have a broad network outside their own work group

Assessing Individual Competencies

After discovering these 16 differentiating competencies and understanding
the impact of developing strengths, we examined typical approaches used in
assessing a leader’s effectiveness using 360 degree feedback. Our evaluation
of common practices identified several consistent problems with the design
and approach of most 360 assessments.

1. Many assessments give leaders a false positive impression of their
ability. Leaders assume that they are doing fairly well when in fact
they are only average.
2. Most assessments emphasized identification of weakness rather than
building strengths.
3. Many compared one individual’s results to the mean averages, thus
reinforcing the notion that average leadership was the target.
4. No assessments provided an evaluation of the impact leaders have on
important organizational outcomes such as employee engagement or
commitment
5. Open ended comments requested suggestions for improvement.
These reinforced the focus on weakness because they generated long
lists of suggested improvements.
6. No assessments directly asked for identification of fatal flaws or
significant weaknesses. This made it difficult for leaders to identify the
difference between a skill that was rated as less effective and a skill that
if not corrected would have a substantial negative effect on their
success.

Based on these insights we designed a unique assessment that addressed
these issues. We created items that best differentiated poor, good and extra-
ordinary leaders and that could be completed in approximately 15 minutes.
We sought to give leaders a more accurate view of their strengths or insights