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LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Leadership
Under the
Microscope
Revised Edition

The science behind developing

extraordinary leaders.
Multiple factors combine to determine the ultimate success
or failure of a leader. The vari­ables are interdependent and
difficult to isolate. But complexity doesn’t justify surrender.
On the contrary, the study of leadership begs for a more
scientific approach.

by Jack Zenger, Kurt Sandholtz, and Joe Folkman

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Leadership Under
the Microscope Revised Edition
The science behind developing extraordinary leaders.

by Jack Zenger, Kurt Sandholtz, and Joe Folkman

OUR CURRENT SITUATION These factors combine to determine the ultimate success or fail-
Leadership development has been stuck for a long time. The ure of the leader. The variables are interdependent and difficult to
most fundamental questions are still in dispute. For example: isolate. But complexity doesn’t justify surrender. On the contrary,
• What is this thing we call leadership? the study of leadership begs for a more scientific approach.
• In thousands of books on the subject, we have yet to find two
that use the same definition. THE NEED FOR SCIENCE
• Is it genetically hardwired into some people but not others? Success in understanding any complex field requires research-
There are strong advocates of both positions about leaders ers to apply scientific rigor and then share their findings. Con-
being “born or made.” sider the progress made by the medical profession as they have
• How can it be developed? embraced the concept of their practice being strongly guided by
• What methods really work? rigorous scientific evidence.

Ironically, these questions persist in the midst of a veritable Frankly, with only a few exceptions, such rigor has been lacking
mountain of printed material. Every bookstore contains dozens if in the study of leadership. More common are the pontifications of
not hundreds of books on the subject, many written by scholars prominent figures, both successful practitioners and academic
and many others written by ghostwriters from prominent busi- gurus. Their war stories, while entertaining, leave us with con-
ness, military, and governmental leaders. Tens of thousands of flicting opinions on the key issues and precious little in the way of
articles exist, and the number of speeches on the subject seems universal, actionable recommendations.
akin to grains of sand on the seashore.
For the past ten years, one of the authors, Dr. Folkman, has
Certainly, leadership is a complex topic. Among the variables in led a team that has been analyzing a substantial database of
the leadership equation are: some 1,000,000 feedback assessments (commonly called
• Individual traits (the leader’s intellectual, psychological, emo- 360-degree feedback reports) correlating to approximately
tional and physical make-up) 100,000 managers. These questionnaires are collected within
• Organizational context (the organization’s culture, history, hundreds of companies. 64 percent of the data collected orig-
structure, etc.) inates from North America; while 36 percent originates from
• Marketplace dynamics (competition, growth, opportunities, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. In
etc.) many cases, we also have concrete performance metrics on
• Staff characteristics (Are the people being led collaborative or these same managers, allowing us to compare their “hard”
antagonistic? Competent or novices?) results with what some might call “soft” 360-degree feedback.
• Performance metrics (Can the leader’s impact be quantified?
How is it best measured?) The results of this research are published in two books. The first,
The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great

1 Zenger Folkman
Leaders1 summarizes the research findings and the methodolo- dinary leaders had results that often doubled the performance
gy that was used. A second book, How to Be Exceptional: Drive of the below average leaders. In short, we’ve been putting our
Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths,2 emphasized leadership development emphasis on the wrong populations.
how strengths could be developed. The research has also been Rather than focusing mostly on the top or bottom end, our efforts
described in the Harvard Business Review article, “Making Your- should be directed to the large group in the middle. Building
self Indispensable.”3 these “good” leaders’ capability to behave like “top tier” lead-
ers produces results that are far beyond incremental. At the 70th,
FIVE CONCLUSIONS FROM OUR RESEARCH 80th, and 90th percentiles of leadership effectiveness, the per-
Our data-driven approach to understanding leadership has led to formance differences are almost exponential.
a number of unexpected insights. Here are five of our fundamen-
tal findings. 2. We need to stop emphasizing weaknesses.
Future leaders learn at a young age that the way to improve
1. We need to set our sights higher. themselves is to fix their weaknesses. When leaders receive a
Earlier in his career, one of the authors co-founded a highly 360-degree feedback report, they tend to ignore the data on their
successful supervisory skills training firm. The firm’s underly- strong points in favor of an in-depth analysis of their shortcom-
ing objective was to teach frontline managers the basic skills ings. They have developed a bone-deep belief that if they raise
required of a leader. Because so many supervisors lacked these those lower scores, they will be better leaders. Nothing could be
fundamentals, merely getting them to the point of adequacy further from the truth.
turned out to be a worthwhile achievement. In hindsight, the
skills provided stopped short of the ultimate target: to produce In our research, “lack of weaknesses” was not the distinguish-
extraordinary leaders who, in turn, produce extraordinary results ing feature of the best leaders. Instead, they possessed a few
for the company. profound strengths. They used these strengths to great advan-
tage for the organization—and, in turn, were recognized for
Many of today’s organizations fall into a similar trap. They focus being “world-class” in two or three areas. In contrast, the “medi-
on underperformers with the intent to bring them up to an ade- ocre” leaders were distinguished by their lack of strengths, not
quate level. Conversely, others invest heavily in their high poten- their possession of a few deficiencies. They were “OK” in many
tial managers and provide few developmental resources for leadership competencies, but nothing really made them stand
everyone else,4 thus limiting the number of extraordinary leaders out from the crowd. In other words, the absence of low ratings
the firm could potentially have. (along with the absence of high ratings in any areas) describes
the bottom third of managers in most organizations. As one
Our research indicates that neither approach is optimal. Organi- wag observed, “It’s the bland leading the bland.” Raising these
zations will reap huge benefits by helping the vast pool of “good” “bland” managers’ lowest scores is virtually guaranteed not to
managers learn how to become “great.” We were amazed to see make a noticeable difference in their overall leadership effective-
the enormous performance differences between these good ness. They need a totally different strategy.
leaders and their extraordinary counterparts. On every measure
we examined—net profits, customer satisfaction, employee turn- A caveat is in order here. Our research identified one situation in
over, even employees’ satisfaction with their pay—the extraor- which working on weaknesses is the right thing: when the lead-
er possesses what could be termed a “fatal flaw.” All leaders
1 Zenger, John H. and Folkman, Joseph R. The Extraordinary Leader: How Good Managers have some areas where they’re not so strong. Such “rough edg-
Become Great Leaders (McGraw-Hill, 2002). es” aren’t a problem if the leader has outstanding strengths that
2 Zenger, John H., Joseph R. Folkman, Robert Sherwin and Barbara Steel, How To Be compensate. But if the shortcomings are so serious that they pre-
Exceptional: Drive Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths, (McGraw-Hill, 2012. vent a leader from being recognized for his or her strengths, they
3 Zenger, John H., Joseph R. Folkman, Scott Edinger, “Making Yourself Indispensable,” become a brick wall. The leader cannot move forward until this
Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2011. wall is torn down.
4 We have a variety of concerns about focusing exclusively on a handful of people who are

believed to be high-potential. First, organizations are often wrong in selecting those who 3. Leaders need to fix fatal flaws.
will succeed. Second, singling out high-potential people can create an organizational When we think of someone who is a bad boss, we have imag-
elitism that causes serious rifts between people. Third, those not selected develop a belief es of rude behavior: people being berated in public, someone
that they are inferior. Their organizational commitment often wanes, along with their desire shouting and pounding the table, or the boss who takes credit for
for self-development. Fourth, those organizations that offer leadership development to a the good work of subordinates while blaming them for any mis-
broader audience are reaping huge benefits from that policy. take that is made. Occasionally, you still hear of a manager who

Zenger Folkman 2
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

displays such boorish, childish and uncouth behavior. However, our empirical research showed 16 differentiating competencies
these are not the most frequent cause for a leader possessing a clustered into 5 areas. The picture looks like this:
fatal flaw.
The center pole represents the cluster of leadership traits having
Instead, fatal flaws have a common thread. They are “sins of to do with character: honesty and integrity. We believe this is at
omission,” resulting from inaction, risk aversion, and a “status the core of all effective leadership. Events in the past years have
quo” mentality. The message is clear: Playing it safe is perhaps provided dramatic evidence of the terrible price organizations
the riskiest thing a leader can do. Better to get out and make pay when leaders lack these attributes. Great organizations have
something happen than be perceived as a conservative, careful been obliterated by the behavior of a few key people. Industries
non-contributor. have had their reputations seriously tarnished by leaders lacking
character.
4. We need to invest more in identifying and developing
strengths.
Being an extraordinary leader doesn’t mean doing 50 things
reasonably well; it means doing 5 things extremely well. A major
discovery from our research was that great strength in a relatively
small number of competencies catapults a person into the top tier
of their organization. The implications are revolutionary. Rather
than spend time in bringing up low scores (as long as they’re not
“fatal flaws”), leaders get far greater ROI by choosing an area of
moderately high skill and ratcheting it significantly upward. When
a leader develops five competencies to a “top 10 percent” level
of proficiency (i.e., a degree of competence displayed by the best
leaders in the organization), then this person will join that elite
group.
In one corner, the pole represents personal capabilities: tech-
Dr. Folkman was making a presentation on these research nical competence, problem solving skills, innovation, and taking
findings to a Silicon Valley firm. One executive came up during initiative. These are skills that should be acquired early in one’s
the break and asked, “What is the most important thing you’ve career, prior to accepting a supervisory position. They are essen-
discovered?” As Dr. Folkman began to repeat our major findings, tial to the leader and cannot be passed over.
the executive stopped him and said, “No, let me tell you the
most important thing you’ve found: It’s that I’ve got a chance! I’ll In the second corner pole is a cluster of competencies around
never be Superman, but I think I can develop a small number of the leader’s focus on results, including setting high goals that
outstanding strengths.” stretch the team, and accepting responsibility for the perfor-
mance of the work group. Again, the ultimate measure of leader-
These strengths are not just any behaviors. Punctuality, for exam- ship comes in the form of the results the leader produces for the
ple, was not a differentiating characteristic of the best leaders. organization.
The strengths must be in areas that truly make a difference. They
must be traits or behaviors that make a positive impact on how The third corner pole represents effective interpersonal skills.
the organization functions. We identified these as “differentiating These include being a powerful and prolific communicator, moti-
competencies.” We discovered 16 such differentiating behaviors. vating and inspiring others, and collaborating with other people
Every leader would be advised to work on competencies from and groups. Some organizations tolerate interpersonally-im-
this list. paired leaders in the short run, but few put up with it for long.

5. Leadership needs a broad footprint. The final corner pole represents leading change. This cluster
In reporting this research our objectives were to make it simple includes being a champion for constant change, being the link to
and actionable, along with being empirical. We created a meta- the outside world, and looking over the horizon for what is com-
phor for leadership that many have found helpful. Think of a tra- ing up.
ditional tent, with a center pole and four corner poles holding up
an expanse of canvas. The amount of space inside the tent is This simple tent metaphor communicates a number of important
symbolic of the effectiveness of a leader. As mentioned above, implications.

3 Zenger Folkman
• One tent pole, no matter how tall, doesn’t make a great tent. It mism. I’ve always prided myself on finding the flaw in any
lifts very little canvas. Only when the poles are spaced apart, argument, or a potential problem no one else could see.
representing differing capabilities, does the tent grow in vol- That’s a helpful trait when you’re running an oil refinery.
ume. The easiest way to expand the tent is by extending the But I can see how it undermines my relationships with oth-
poles, not by running about trying to elevate a drooping sec- ers. People may not like to have a discussion with some-
tion of canvas. one who’s always telling them why their ideas won’t work.”

• There are few perfect tents. Typically, one tent pole is higher • That the differentiating competencies and their companion
than the others. This reflects a person’s style and personality. behaviors are statistically linked is obvious from the data. Less
While a leader’s tent does not need to be perfectly balanced, obvious is the reason for the connection. Does A cause B, or
they cannot have a fatal flaw in any pole and be an extraordi- does B cause A? Or, do they simply have another common root
nary leader. from which they both stem? The answer to those questions
will hopefully come as we conduct further research. We invite
• Strengths are built by utilizing competencies in all tent poles.
interested parties to participate in researching this interest-
Some have expressed concern about “overused strengths”—
ing phenomenon that shows such great promise as a way to
that is, a competency carried to an extreme becoming a weak-
develop leadership.
ness. We saw no evidence of overused strengths in the data.
Rather, we saw numerous examples of imbalanced strengths For now, we can say with total confidence, for example, that
that, by themselves, could only take the leader so far. (Imagine “assertiveness” is a powerful companion behavior to “hones-
how preposterous it would be to tell an executive, “Would you ty and integrity,” or that “networking” greatly leverages a per-
please stop getting such great results? You’re overusing that son’s strength in “technical expertise.”
strength!”)
Examples abound in the world of athletics. Why do world class
• Developing strengths often requires a non-linear approach. tennis players lift weights and run long distances? Why do run-
Ask anyone how to go about correcting a weakness, and they ners also swim and bicycle? Such cross-training has become
will give you the standard answer: study, practice, get feed- commonplace as athletes have discovered it greatly improves
back, repeat. Ask the same person, “OK, how would you build their performance. The competency companions represent
on a strength?” and you’ll often be met by a blank stare. We’ve the cross-training manual for leaders who are intent on build-
been conditioned to look for and fix defects. When a person ing on their strengths.
begins to excel in an area, a different approach to development
is required. CONCLUSIONS
The Extraordinary Leader research provides fresh, new insights
In delving into the empirical data, we discovered a fascinating
into the nature of leadership and leadership development. Like
and previously unnoticed phenomenon. A number of support-
most research, it pushes out the perimeter of the circle of knowl-
ing behaviors were statistically correlated with each of the 16
edge. Just beyond the circle, however, is the vast expanse of
differentiating leadership competencies. Leaders who scored
unanswered questions. Our hope is that many more students of
in the top 10 percent on the differentiating behavior also tend-
leadership will approach this extremely important topic with sci-
ed to score very high on these supporting behaviors. We have
entific rigor. We hope more professionals will collect data with
called these supporting behaviors “competency compan-
reasonable precision from a variety of organizations.
ions”—or if you are in a whimsical mood, “behavioral buddies.”

We are convinced that, to a great degree, leaders can be made.

An oil company executive wanted to move his relation-
Genetic make-up is not the main determinant of great leadership,
ship-building skills from good to great. In working with
but it accounts for roughly one-third of the traits and behaviors
a coach, he stated his goal as, “I am going to be nicer!”
that define exceptional leaders. We acknowledge that much of
“What does that mean?” the coach asked. “Well, you
leadership development happens casually and informally as peo-
know,” he answered, “I’m going to be friendly, not pushy.”
ple work. But we are not dissuaded from believing that intense
Faced with this well-intentioned but vague reply, the coach
bursts of structured development can have a powerful effect in
discussed with him the seven competency companions
creating a new mindset and new skills. Just as formal classroom
associated with relationship building. “Do any of those
development can greatly accelerate the progress of newly mint-
companion skills jump out at you?” queried the coach.
ed supervisors, good science will continue to be of enormous
After a bit of reflection, the executive responded, “Opti-
help in our quest to develop extraordinary leaders.

Zenger Folkman 4
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

JACK ZENGER, D.B.A.

Jack Zenger is a world-renowned behavioral scientist, bestselling author, consultant,
and a national columnist for Forbes and Harvard Business Review. With more than
five decades of experience in leadership development, he is recognized as a world
expert in the field of people development and organizational behavior. His ability to
connect with Executives and audiences though compelling research and inspiring
stories make him an influential and highly sought-after consultant and speaker.

KURT SANDHOLTZ, Ph.D.

Kurt Sandholtz, Ph.D., is a talented facilitator, writer, and training designer. He has
delivered hundreds of seminars on leadership, coaching skills, change management,
and career planning. He holds a Master’s degree in organizational behavior from
Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is a professor at
BYU. He is the co-author of two books: Beyond Juggling: Rebalancing Your Busy Life
and HR Competencies: Mastery at the Intersection of People and Business.

JOE FOLKMAN, Ph.D.

Joe Folkman, Ph.D., is globally recognized as a top leader in the field of psychometrics,
leadership, and change. He is a consultant to some of the world’s most successful
organizations, a best-selling author, and a frequent keynote speaker and conference
presenter. His research has been reported in numerous publications including,
The Harvard Business Review, Forbes, CLO Magazine, The Wall Street Journal,
Huffington Post, Business Insider, CNN, and many others.

ZENGER FOLKMAN
Better Leaders. Better Results.®
Zenger Folkman exists to develop better leaders. We research leaders from all over
the world and create insights that are delivered to individual leaders in a person-
al and constructive way. These scientifically derived insights include prescriptive
actions that become measurable business results. To learn more, please visit our
website: www.zengerfolkman.com.

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