People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1 - 8

perspectives - point
Editor's Introduction
Marc Sokol, Perspectives Editor
Imagine a string that connects the CEO of your company to every
employee in the field, and the way that string is pulled is somehow
felt by every single employee. Now imagine that the executive
team and even the leaders a level below also touch that string and
have their own impact on employees.
This will be helpful if the string vibrates in the right way, sending
clear messages that drive productive and healthy behavior. It can
also be confusing, even damaging, if the messages are inconsistent
or counterproductive.
All of which assumes the CEO and other leaders actually know
when they are tugging on the string and what messages they are
conveying with their actions.
Robert Hogan, author of our lead Perspective, Six Lessons on
Leadership, is one of the world's foremost authorities on that
string that connects leaders to the rest of the organization. His
research and its practical application have helped articulate the
value chain of executive personality and information processing,
leading to engagement and business unit performance. Ultimately, this connects to organizational health and wellness-or the
lack thereof.
To amplify and expand on Dr. Hogan's perspective, we invited
commentary from five other thought leaders:
Dave Winsborough highlights attributes of leaders who mark
dysfunction and eventual peril for followers. If you can recognize
them, steer clear of these types of leaders.

Rob Kaiser writes about the contrast of attributes that help some
ascend to executive roles versus a different set of attributes that
reflect leaders' real effectiveness. Can you spot the difference
among your executives?
Adrian Furnham takes issue with the assertion that leaders can
drive positive and negative engagement, as there exists a different
set of factors underlying each.
If the first three commentaries are cautionary about leaders and
their impact, the next two are optimistic.
Allan Church describes how one global firm helps its leaders
leverage awareness of personal tendencies and provides a process
to help their behavior not be dominated by the presence or absence
of particular tendencies.
Joshua Ehrlich closes the set, arguing that through mindful selfacceptance leaders actually can manage their own personal tendencies and in the process contribute to wellness in the workplace.
If you believe leaders can impact the health and wellness of the
workplace, then this installment of Perspectives is for you. After
reading the lead Perspective and the commentaries that follow,
you can contact any of the authors directly, or let me know how
you are addressing leadership and organizational health in your
company. -Marc Sokol
Marc can be reached at Marc.Sokol@SageHRD.com.

Six Lessons on Leadership
Robert Hogan, Ph.D.
I am obsessed with the topic of leadership. Organizations need leaders to make key decisions,
anticipate and manage changing market trends,
and set strategic vision. When competent leadership prevails, people and companies prosper.
Bad leadership almost always gives rise to
disengaged workers, corporate chicanery, and,
eventually, business failure.
The problem with most leadership competency models is they fail to distinguish between
successful managers-people who are rapidly
8

PEOPLE & STRATEGY

promoted in their organizations-and effective managers-people whose subordinates
are committed and whose organizational units
perform well. If we distinguish between these
groups and review the leadership literature
from the perspective of team effectiveness, we
find six useful generalizations.

people want to see in their leaders. Kouzes
and Posner (2010) devised a simple paradigm
for studying this: Ask people to describe the
best and the worst managers they have ever
had using a standardized format. This
research reveals that people evaluate leaders
in terms of four broad categories:

1. What Followers Want from Their
Leaders

Integrity. Followers want to know that the
people in charge won't take advantage of
their positions-they won't lie, steal, play
favorites, or betray their subordinates.

The first concerns the characteristics that

People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1