Page 255 - The extraordinary leader

232 • The Extraordinary Leader

unique and different as those of individuals. The team profile helps team
members understand the strengths of the team and also potential team flaws.
Because all of the individual reports are aggregated, individual anonymity is
protected. Understanding this profile enables a team to understand its over-
all leadership capability.

A TALE OF TWO TEAMS

As an example of the power of this approach, let us consider two different
teams in the same organization. One of the teams was focused on running a
particular business (Team A), whereas the other team led a staff function
(Team B).

Overall Leadership Effectiveness

It is very helpful to give the members of a team some sense of their overall
effectiveness as leaders. To do this, we create an index based on all of the 360
items assessing the effectiveness of individual leaders and calculate an over-
all leadership effectiveness index. We analyze the results from managers,
peers, direct reports, and others as a collective group and compare these results
with those of our Extraordinary Leader norm base.
Notice that both groups score very well in terms of their overall leadership
effectiveness. Team A is an aggregate of 16 leaders, and Team B includes eight
leaders. In order for the 16 leaders to have an average overall leadership effec-
tiveness score at the 77th percentile, this group had to include results from
several excellent leaders (Figure 11-1). In fact, seven of the leaders in Team
A score above the 80th percentile on the overall leadership effectiveness index.
However, the range of scores in Team A is also substantial. Leaders in Team
A range in their overall leadership effectiveness from the 33rd percentile to
the 98th percentile.
Team B also contained some very effective leaders with three of their lead-
ers scoring at the 80th percentile or higher. The range of scores in Team B is
from the 24th percentile to the 98th percentile. Both groups had a few highly
competent leaders and a few less competent leaders. The good news is that
the strong leaders set an example and mentor those that need improvement.
Both teams had above-average leadership capability, but also saw the need for
continued improvement.