The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders Book

A No-Nonsense, Battle-Tested Program for Developing Exceptional Leadership Skills--Both In Your Organization and Yourself. The ability to lead, far more than just a natural gift, is a concrete and learnable skill­­ - one that can be acquired by studying and applying specific proficiencies and attitudes. The Extraordinary Leader draws on responses from 200,000 questionnaires to define the skills that comprise effective leadership, and then provides a systematic and innovative program for attaining, developing, and implementing those skills. The Extraordinary Leader reveals leadership as a skill, one that can be consciously learned and developed by anyone. This breakthrough book identifies the competencies necessary for effective leadership by analyzing the responses of tens of thousands of workforce members as they describe, in effect, "What makes a great leader?" Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman­­ - two of today's preeminent leadership experts­­analyze the answers and provide a broad and universal model for achieving exceptional results. They outline the five core competencies that form the basis for successful leadership and detail techniques that include: Methods that top organizations use to develop leaders from within their own ranks. A major weakness in most leadership development programs has been the tendency to aim low and strive for incremental improvements in individual areas of weakness. When the results inevitably fail to impact the bottom line, organizations abandon programs as unsuccessful­­ and again resume their misguided focus on uncovering and eliminating leadership weaknesses instead of identifying and developing leadership strengths. The Extraordinary Leader provides research-based strategies for strengthening leadership both in individuals and in organizations and, in the process, delivers a solid yet flexible leadership development program that will provide long-term value to virtually any organization.Read More