Mastering Leadership

Chapter 2 Leadership Effectiveness and Business Performance: The Primary Competitive Advantage

We will only seek a better model of leadership and make the Leadership Development Agenda a strategic priority if we believe that more effective leaders achieve higher performance and that we can develop effective leaders at a faster pace.

The fourth Promise of Leadership is that we lead effectively and continue to become more effective. When asked, leaders always agree that the effectiveness of leadership (both individual and collective) is a primary contributor to business performance and success. Yet, developing leadership effectiveness is rarely a leadership priority. In fact, it is often relegated to a staff function that struggles for attention and relevance amid competing priorities. Furthermore, most organizations, if they are focused on leadership development, focus on individual effectiveness and ignore the huge potential of collective leadership effectiveness.

WHAT THE RESEARCH SHOWS

The entire arch of leadership inquiry and research is rooted in the premise that leadership effectiveness matters. At The Leadership Circle, we are adding to this research. We developed a business performance metric by asking leaders to evaluate the performance of a business (or business unit) compared to industry standards on a series of performance criteria, including revenue, market share, sales, profitability, quality of products and services, new product development, and overall business ...