Page 49 - The extraordinary leader

26 • The Extraordinary Leader

with advantages of intellect or personality, but the case for leaders being made
can be confirmed by finding just one organization that does it successfully.
Chapter 9 presents a case study of an organization that many consider the
epitome of effective leadership development. The U.S. Marine Corps has for
the past 226 years been developing leaders. We present the argument that
from their long experience, they have adopted many practices that are only
now being confirmed by research.

Insight 18. Leaders Can Improve Their Leadership
Effectiveness Through Self-Development

Finally, in Chapter 10 we discuss the implications of our research to leader-
ship development undertaken by the individual. These ideas apply to any
people in leadership positions who desire to improve their own leadership
skills and effectiveness.
A relatively small fraction, approximately 10 percent of leaders, have a
personal development plan to which they give regular attention. Twice that
number have something on paper, but one half of those are not doing
anything to follow up on their development.

Insight 19. The Organization, with a Person’s Immediate
Boss, Provides Significant Assistance in Developing
Leadership
In Chapter 12, we present some ideas about how any corporation or public
agency could incorporate these ideas into their own leadership development
offerings.

Insight 20. The Quality of Leadership in an Organization
Seldom Exceeds That of the Person at the Top
In analyzing our many sets of data collected from multiple organizations,
we observed that the scores of leaders in the organization rarely exceeded
the scores of the most senior leader. That person was the cap on leadership
effectiveness. See Chapter 12 and Chapter 2 for further analysis of this
observation.