The End of Leadership as We Know It

10Data‐Driven Decisions Still Need a Driver

Team‐building meetings are often forgettable, but not the one that one of us (Dan) facilitated many years ago. Prior to the meeting, the executives completed an online survey assessing their team's strengths and development opportunities. Dan and his colleagues crunched the data and produced the results, which were surprisingly negative. It appeared the team rated itself quite low on indices related to how much they trusted one another and were open to engaging in candid conversations.

The CEO was taken aback by the results and said he had no idea people felt this way. Team members began to share their theories on why the scores were low, raising specific examples of when they witnessed maladaptive behavior. Many reported that the ensuing discussion was the most candid and productive conversation the team ever had. To a person, the executives felt they had grown closer as a team.

After a festive team dinner, Dan returned to his hotel for the evening, pleased with how the day had gone. But something was gnawing at him. He went back to the survey data and was mortified to discover that in the rush to process the survey data he and his colleagues had inverted the scales. Where he had told the leadership team their ratings were high, they were low, and vice versa. Dan called the CEO to confess the error and explain the situation. Expecting the CEO would chew him out, Dan was pleasantly surprised.

“Dan,” the CEO replied, “that was the ...