Page 128 - The extraordinary leader

The Competency Quest • 105

into a potential fatal flaw that would crater their effectiveness. Rather than
compare leaders to a mean average of all others we showed them how their
scores compared with leaders at the 75th and 90th percentile. This compar-
ison to the best leaders tended to automatically reset an individual’s target.
We incorporated five questions that assessed the level of employee com-
mitment and engagement of the people that reported directly to each leader.
All of our research has indicated that these two dimensions are highly
correlated. Using this data each individual leader could get an understand-
ing of how their leadership impacted the satisfaction, commitment and
expected turnover of team members. We have come to the conclusion that
this approach provides a stronger platform for change and improvement.
For a self-assessment on the 16 differentiating competencies go to our web
site at www.zengerfolkman.com and follow the Extraordinary Leader link.