Scaling Leadership

Chapter 4 High-Creative Leadership Strengths What Differentiates the Most Effective Leaders

All leaders have strengths. All leaders have weaknesses, even the best leaders. In this chapter we ask: “How do leaders describe the very best leaders?” You will see that what they say differentiates the most effective leaders from the least effective, focusing on the strengths of the most effective, High-Creative leaders.

We analyzed 1,350 pages of written comments around these two questions:

1. What is this person’s greatest leadership strength, asset, skill, or talent?
2. What is this person’s greatest leadership challenge or area for development?

We engaged an independent research firm to perform a Matrix Content Analysis on these written comments. The researchers sorted the data into 77 categories of the most commonly mentioned themes comprised of 40 leadership strengths and 37 leadership liabilities. (See Appendix D for a description of the research firm, the research methodology, and definitions of all 77 categories of strengths and weaknesses.) After sorting the data into categories/themes, the researchers calculated endorsement scores for each—that is, how often these strengths or liabilities were mentioned.

Here’s an example of how they kept score: If a group of us was rating Nadia and only one of us endorses her for courage, her endorsement score is a one-half (.5) point. If three or more of us endorse Nadia for that same quality, her score is one (1) point. This is the maximum ...