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Jack Gordon is a former chief editor of Training Magazine and an award-winning writer. He is the editor of numerous books, including The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Conflict Management Tools and The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Communication Skill-Building Tools.

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The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools

THIS EXTRAORDINARY RESOURCE INCLUDES the most successful leadership development tools selected from three decades of the Pfeiffer Annuals and Handbooks. Since 1972, trainers and consultants have found these volumes to contain a treasure chest of resources for a wide range of training and organization-development needs.

The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools is organized into three sections: Presentations and Discussions (articles); Experiential Learning Activities; and Inventories, Questionnaires, and Surveys. These selections represent the all-time best the Pfeiffer Annuals and Handbooks have to offer on the topic. The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools:

• Includes an overview of management theorists who have shaped modern thought about organizations and leadership
• Contains complete, ready-made training exercises designed to meet a variety of needs for different audiences
• Offers inventories that include questionnaires and instruments that help people clarify their own beliefs about leadership

The materials covered are selected not only for quality but with an eye toward serving a broad range of objectives and training situations. This resource is written to help develop leadership skills, from first-level supervisors to high-level executives. The activities and instruments can be customized for all levels of the management hierarchy.

The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools offers the resources you need to help build better organizations for working people everywhere.

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The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools

THIS EXTRAORDINARY RESOURCE INCLUDES the most successful leadership development tools selected from three decades of the Pfeiffer Annuals and Handbooks. Since 1972, trainers and consultants have found these volumes to contain a treasure chest of resources for a wide range of training and organization-development needs.

The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools is organized into three sections: Presentations and Discussions (articles); Experiential Learning Activities; and Inventories, Questionnaires, and Surveys. These selections represent the all-time best the Pfeiffer Annuals and Handbooks have to offer on the topic. The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools:

• Includes an overview of management theorists who have shaped modern thought about organizations and leadership
• Contains complete, ready-made training exercises designed to meet a variety of needs for different audiences
• Offers inventories that include questionnaires and instruments that help people clarify their own beliefs about leadership

The materials covered are selected not only for quality but with an eye toward serving a broad range of objectives and training situations. This resource is written to help develop leadership skills, from first-level supervisors to high-level executives. The activities and instruments can be customized for all levels of the management hierarchy.

The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools offers the resources you need to help build better organizations for working people everywhere.

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The Pfeiffer Book of Successful Leadership Development Tools

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

What you have heard about leadership is only half the story. Leadership is not just about leaders; it is also about followers. Leadership is a reciprocal process. It occurs between people. It is not done by one person to another.

Successful leadership depends far more on the follower's perception of the leader than on the leader's abilities. Followers, not the leader, determine when someone possesses the qualities of leadership. In other words, leadership is in the eye of the follower.

Leadership Characteristics

During a five-year period we investigated the perceptions that followers have of leaders. We asked more than 10,000 managers nationwide from a wide range of private and public organizations to tell us what they look for or admire in their leaders. The results from these surveys have been striking in their regularity. It seems there are several essential tests a leader must pass before we are willing to grant him or her the title of "leader."

According to our research, the majority of us admire leaders who are honest, competent, forward-looking, inspiring, and, ultimately, credible.

Honesty

In every survey we conducted, honesty was selected more often than any other leadership characteristic. After all, if we are to willingly follow someone, whether into battle or into the boardroom, we first want to assure ourselves that the person is worthy of our trust. We will ask, "Is that person truthful? Ethical? Principled? Of high integrity? Does he or she have character?" These are not simple questions to answer. It is not easy to measure such subjective characteristics. In our discussions with respondents we found that it was the leader's behavior that provided the evidence. In other words, regardless of what leaders say about their integrity, followers wait to be shown.

Leaders are considered honest by followers if they do what they say they are going to do. Agreements not followed through, false promises, cover-ups, and inconsistencies between word and deed are all indicators that an ostensible leader is not honest. On the other hand, if a leader behaves in ways consistent with his or her stated values and beliefs, then we can entrust to that person our careers, our security, and ultimately even our lives.

This element of trustworthiness is supported in another study we conducted of leadership practices. In that study we found that of all behaviors describing leadership, the most important single item was the leader's display of trust in others. Irwin Federman, venture capitalist and former president and CEO (chief executive officer) of chip-maker Monolithic Memories, says it best: "Trust is a risk game. The leader must ante up first." If leaders want to be seen as trustworthy, they must first give evidence of their own trust in others.

Sam Walton, founder and chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., provides an excellent example of trustworthiness and "anteing up first" in leadership: In 1983 Walton-rated by Forbes to be the richest man in the United States-made a wager. Concerned that the company might have a disappointing year, he bet Wal-Mart employees that if they achieved a greater profit than in previous years he would don a hula skirt and hula down Wall Street. They did. And he did. He kept his word and did what he said he would do. He showed he had integrity, even if it meant public embarrassment. But imagine what would have happened had Sam not kept his word. You can believe that his employees would not have anted up for the next bet!

Competence

The leadership attribute chosen next most frequently is competence. To enlist in another's cause, we must believe that person knows what he or she is doing. We must see the person as capable and effective. If we doubt the leader's abilities, we are unlikely to enlist in the crusade. Leadership competence does not necessarily refer to the leader's technical abilities. Rather the competence followers look for varies with the leader's position and the condition of the company. For example, the higher the rank of the leader, the more people demand to see demonstrations of abilities in strategic planning and policy making. If a company desperately needs to clarify its corporate strategy, a CEO with savvy in competitive marketing may be seen as a fine leader. But at the line functional level, where subordinates expect guidance in technical areas, these same managerial abilities will not be enough.

We have come to refer to the kind of competence needed by leaders as value-added competence. Functional competence may be necessary, but it is insufficient. The leader must bring some added value to the position. Tom Melohn, president of North American Tool and Die (NATD) in San Leandro, California, is a good case in point. Tom, along with a partner, bought NATD several years ago. A former consumer-products executive, Tom knows nothing about how to run a drill press or a stamping machine. He claims he cannot even screw the license plates on his car. Yet, in the nine years since he bought the company, NATD has excelled in every possible measure in its industry, whereas under the original founder-an experienced toolmaker-NATD achieved only average or below-average results.

If Tom brings no industry, company, or technical expertise to NATD, what has enabled him to lead the firm to its astounding results? Our answer: Tom added to the firm what it most needed at the time-the abilities to motivate and sell. Tom entrusted the skilled employees with the work they knew well; and for his part, he applied the selling skills he had learned from a quarter-century in marketing consumer products. He also rewarded and recognized the NATD "gang" for their accomplishments, increasing their financial and emotional sense of ownership in the firm.

Being Forward-Looking

Over half of our respondents selected "forward-looking" as their third most sought after leadership trait. We expect our leaders to have a sense of direction and a concern for the future of the company. Some use the word "vision"; others, the word "dream." Still others refer to this sense of direction as a "calling" or "personal agenda." Whatever the word, the message is clear: True leaders must know where they are going.

Two other surveys that we conducted with top executives reinforced the importance of clarity of purpose and direction. In one study, 284 senior executives rated "developing a strategic planning and forecasting capability" as the most critical concern. These same senior managers, when asked to select the most important characteristics in a CEO, cited "a leadership style of honesty and integrity" first, followed by "a long-term vision and direction for the company."

By "forward-looking" we do not mean the magical power of a prescient visionary. The reality is far more down to earth: It is the ability to set or select a desirable destination toward which the organization should head. The vision of a leader is the compass that sets the course of the company. Followers ask that a leader have a well-defined orientation to the future. A leader's "vision" is, in this way, similar to an architect's model of a new...