Should Leaders Focus on Results, or on People?

In 2009, James Zenger published a fascinating survey of 60,000 employees to identify how different characteristics of a leader combine to affect employee perceptions of whether the boss is a “great” leader or not. If a leader was seen as being very strong on results focus, the chance of that leader being seen as a great leader was only 14%. If a leader was strong on social skills, he or she was seen as a great leader even less of the time — a paltry 12%.However, for leaders who were strong in both results focus and in social skills, the likelihood of being seen as a great leader skyrocketed to 72%. Read more...