Page 33 - The extraordinary leader

10 • The Extraordinary Leader

as 360-degree feedback, because of its comprehensive view of a leader’s
behavior, looked at from above, the side, and below. Indeed, we later describe
our database of some 200,000 responses, using 360-degree questionnaires. We
focus on the question: What do these three groups (subordinates, peers, and
bosses) notice? What do they see in “great leaders” that sets them apart from
the average ones?
Of those three perspectives, we conclude that the best way to understand
leadership is to examine the impact leaders have on the people they lead. It
is the subordinates’ view we value the most, because we believe they have the
most complete and accurate data.
Peers and bosses see slices of a leader’s behavior, but there is good evidence
to conclude that their perceptions are less accurate than those of the people
who report to the leader.
We strongly believe that this comprehensive pool of data is far more
powerful and accurate than information that would come from interviews
of leaders themselves. As Michael Polanyi noted in his book Personal
Knowledge, “most highly skilled performers in any activity, whether it be
music, sports, or violin making, cannot accurately tell you what makes them
so effective. Their behavior is often highly intuitive. You must actually observe
them to accurately determine the true cause of their success.” 4
This database of approximately 200,000 questionnaires completed by sub-
ordinates, peers, and bosses about leaders collectively describes more than
20,000 leaders. They come from widely diverse industries. These leaders are
from North America, along with many from Europe, the Pacific Rim, and
South America.
To make our database and analysis more robust, we examined more than
25 different leadership assessment instruments. Rather than depending on the
same set of assessment items for all 20,000 leaders, we examined a variety of
different assessments, each built on different assumptions. This provided us
with a database rich in diversity and helped give us a much clearer sense of
what makes effective leadership and what doesn’t. All together, we included
in our analysis more than 2,000 unique assessment items.

Research Methodology

We began our analysis by identifying the top 10 percent of managers as seen
through the eyes of their subordinates, peers, and bosses and compared them
with the bottom 10 percent. The top 10 percent, with the highest aggregate