Leadership Pipeline, 3rd Edition

3Leading Others

Absolutely nothing is more valuable to an individual contributor at work than having a good leader. The leader makes the work experience more pleasant, facilitates the completion of tasks without undue stress, answers questions, and contributes to the development of their employees. An ineffective leader, however, makes the work experience unpleasant, increases stress, and leaves people scratching their heads and looking elsewhere.

From an enterprise perspective, more than 80% of all employees report to a leader‐of‐others, so leaders‐of‐others have the most direct impact of all leaders on reactions such as morale, motivation, attitude, job satisfaction, quality, and employee retention.

Different leaders‐of‐others may have different leadership styles, work in different business/organizational contexts, or operate in different cultures, but the core value equation for leaders‐of‐others is still the same: they create value through others. Let us explore that further.

If an individual contributor improves their total output by 10%, they are the only ones to make the difference. If we exclude external factors, an individual contributor can essentially increase only their “output” by working harder or smarter.

This value equation changes dramatically when moving into a leader‐of‐others role. If a leader‐of‐others is tasked with improving output by 10%, the entire team must be involved and not just the leader. Consequently, a leader‐of‐others cannot improve the output ...