Chapter 2
Leadership Makes a Difference

It's been said that only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance; everything else requires leadership.1

Reflect for a moment on your own experience, and you can certainly appreciate why “everything else requires leadership.” You know firsthand that leadership makes a difference because you've worked with some leaders who've been able to get you to give your very best, and often even a bit more, and you've worked with other people for whom you've done only what is asked of you and not much more.

We've asked thousands of people to think about the worst leader and the best leader they've ever worked with. We then posed the following question: What percentage of your talents (skills and ability plus time and energy) would you say each of these leaders brought out? We then asked them to give us a percentage from 1 to 100.

When people think about their experience with their worst leader, the percentage of talent used typically ranges between 2 and 40 percent, with an average of 31 percent. People report that in their experience with their worst leader, they used less than a third of their available talents. Many continued to work hard, but few put all that they were capable of delivering into their work. Exit interviews reveal a similar phenomenon—­people aren't quitting their company as much as they are quitting the relationship with their manager. A Gallup survey shows that 50 percent of people at some point in their careers have left their job to get away from their manager.²

This dismal situation is in sharp contrast with what people report when they think about their experience with their best leader. These leaders bring out a minimum of 40 percent of their talent, and note that this bottom was the top of the range for the worst leaders. In fact, many claim that their best leaders actually got more than 100 percent of their talent! You know that it's mathematically impossible to get more than 100 percent of an individual's talent, and yet people shake their heads and say, “No, they really did get me to do more than I thought I was capable of doing or that it was possible to do.” The average percentage of talent people's best leaders elicited is a whopping 95 percent.

There's clearly a difference between people's worst and best leaders. As illustrated in Figure 2.1, the best leaders bring out more than three times the amount of talent, energy, and motivation from their people compared with their counterparts at the other end of the spectrum.

Figure 2.1 The Best Leaders Bring out Two to Three Times the Talent in Others Compared with the Worst Leaders

Amelia Klawon, account manager at Moves the Needle, added further insight into these numbers when she remarked how a leader's behavior affects people's confidence in their abilities in their current position and even in future positions. She explained: “I had some people who micromanaged what I did and were quick to criticize and slow to give praise. I started to become more cautious and less confident in my ability to perform in that position and subsequent positions until I worked for someone who believed in me, pushed me, and gave me room to rise to the challenge and lead others. Bad leadership can be very harmful and cause long-term damage to one's confidence and performance that is not easy or quick to repair.”

The data confirm that leadership makes a difference. That difference can be negative or positive, but it does make a ­difference. Leadership has an impact on people's commitment, their desire to stay or leave, their willingness to put forth more discretionary effort, and their inclination to take personal initiative and responsibility. Bad leaders have a dampening effect on these things, and exemplary leaders have just the opposite effect. What sort of difference do you want to achieve through your leadership? The choice is yours.

Leadership and Engagement Levels

There are many reports these days about employee engagement and the impact it has on both personal well-being and organizational productivity. Our studies find that how one's leader behaves explains more than any other variable about why people feel engaged or not in their workplace.3 Multiple regression analyses, using data from more than 650,000 direct reports, reveal that nearly 37 percent of the variance in levels of employee engagement is accounted for by how frequently they see the individual they report to engaging in leadership behaviors—specifically The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership (which we introduce in Chapter 3).⁴

Could engagement levels be better explained by various individual and organizational factors? The answer is no. Such potentially significant and interesting variables as people's age, educational level, gender, functional area, hierarchical level, industry, length of time with the company, size of the organization, or nationality together account for no more than one-tenth of one percent (0.1 percent) in the variation around individuals' levels of engagement. Table 2.1 compares the impact of demographics versus leadership on engagement levels around the world. Clearly, how you behave as a leader matters the most to others.

Table 2.1 Percentage of Engagement Explained by Leadership Practices and Demographics across Countries

Country	Leadership	Demographics
Australia	37.0%	0.3%
Brazil	34.0%	0.5%
Canada	34.0%	0.5%
China	54.4%	0.3%
Egypt	41.9%	3.8%
France	34.1%	1.9%
Germany	39.3%	0.2%
India	45.2%	0.5%
Indonesia	42.6%	1.0%
Ireland	46.9%	1.3%
Israel	39.3%	1.5%
Italy	33.4%	2.1%
Japan	42.9%	1.3%
New Zealand	36.5%	0.7%
Philippines	29.9%	1.0%
Russia	49.4%	0.3%
Saudi Arabia	47.4%	0.4%
Singapore	39.8%	0.9%
South Africa	36.9%	1.0%
South Korea	54.7%	0.8%
United Kingdom	33.9%	0.4%
United States	36.0%	0.1%

There's abundant evidence that how leaders behave makes a difference across a variety of settings. For example, what effect do the leadership behaviors of teachers have on classroom effectiveness and student achievement? Researchers find that “students have an overwhelmingly strong positive reaction to teachers who demonstrate leadership in the classroom,” and it plays a major role in the reaction, behavior, and learning of students.⁵ An investigation into the leadership skills of all-star baseball players concluded that it doesn't matter if you are “part of a team of lawyers sitting in luxury office chairs in a conference room or part of a team of baseball players sitting on pine benches in a locker room. It matters not if the respondent is a lawyer or a mail clerk; an all-star center field or a bat boy. . . . What matters is how they behave.”⁶ Caroline Wang, with more than 30 years of working experience in the United States and across Asia Pacific, and serving on the board of directors for three multinational companies in China, explained, “When it comes to leadership it is not about the leader's personality; it is all about how that individual behaves as a leader.”

It certainly makes sense that how leaders behave explains how engaged their direct reports are in the workplace, but what you might not expect is that the leaders' own behavior also explains how they feel about the workplace. Using the same measurements that we used with direct reports, we asked leaders to indicate their levels of workplace engagement. Those more frequently demonstrating exemplary leader behaviors felt significantly more engaged and positive about their workplace than those leaders who reported demonstrating leadership less frequently. We found a similar result when we studied volunteers with a national youth sports organization. The more they reported engaging in leadership, the more attachment and pride they felt about the organization and their experience with it.⁷ This should not be surprising. The more you invest in making something special happen for others, the more attachment you feel to what you are doing and the organization you are involved with.

When people reflect on their experiences, it becomes clear that the way leaders behave has an impact on both themselves and others around them. Leadership makes a significant and meaningful difference in the willingness of people to put forth great discretionary effort and, in turn, perform beyond expectations. When this happens, you benefit and everyone else does, too.

Leaders Are Different while ­Leadership Is the Same

There is no single mold or distinct personality profile for leadership. Leaders come in all types, shapes, sizes, and colors. There is not one look or style. You are unique, and you don't have to be anyone else but who you are.

You'll find leaders in public and private organizations, from large to small companies, from new to mature industries, from low-tech to high-tech, from cities, communities, and neighborhoods to synagogues, mosques, churches, temples, and athletic teams. There are even pockets of leaders in low-performing and underperforming organizations.

What differentiates leaders from nonleaders is not so much outside the person (the exterior) as it is the interior. Leadership is not a position or place in an organization. It's not confined to a particular job description. Underscoring this point is an experience we had after introducing a senior corporate executive to the students in one of our classes. While thanking us for the introduction, he commented, “That is my title and position in this organization, but it doesn't tell you who I am.” He then went on to explain where he grew up, his family, educational experiences, and how all those things influenced him. And then he added, “Who I am is not simply what I do.” Similarly, leadership is not simply what you do.

Every leader is different because of who he or she is. And yet, every leader is similar because there are definable skills, abilities, and mindsets that differentiate leaders from nonleaders. You have to know who you are—that's essential—and you need to know what exemplary leaders do and how they think to become the best leader you can be.

The point we want to make is that leadership actions and behaviors make a difference across a wide variety of settings, circumstances, and environments. The key empirical takeaway from our research is that effective leaders demonstrate exemplary leader behaviors more frequently than their less effective colleagues do. Although people can differ in how they demonstrate each behavior, leaders must express them more frequently to increase the engagement and performance of their constituents.

For example, consider the impact of leadership behavior on healthcare leaders working for the same organization in Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Empirical analyses both across and within each country were conducted, from self and constituent perspectives. Although how often leaders used The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership varied across countries, within the countries their impact on constituents was the same. Within each country, the more frequently those leaders used the leadership practices, the more effective constituents viewed them, and the more favorable both their own and constituents' levels of engagement were.8

Furthermore, while some studies suggest that people from different cultures expect different behaviors from their leaders, there is growing evidence of a homogenizing effect from globalization. Think about it this way: If organizational expectations are converging on a global standard, then people around the world should have similar expectations of their leaders; the same leader behaviors should increase people's satisfaction levels with their leader, regardless of the individual's cultural background.⁹

We tested this assertion with representatives from all the world's cultural zones. The results were consistent with the hypothesis. Using The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership as predictors of people's satisfaction with their leader, we found similar results across the world. In nearly 100 percent of the cases, the effect of a given leadership behavior on constituent satisfaction was comparable, regardless of that person's cultural background. People around the world have similar expectations about how leaders should behave and therefore have similar evaluations of what makes their leaders effective. Although you might expect differences between groups—for example, by nationality, function, industry, ethnicity, age, and so on—you won't find differences within groups when it comes to assessing leadership effectiveness.

Leaders can differ in lots of personal ways, but exemplary leaders universally engage in very similar practices. You are a unique person, but there are common leadership practices that bring out the best in others. We'll take a brief look at those in the next chapter.

The Key Message and Action

The key message of this chapter is this: Leadership makes a significant difference in levels of engagement and commitment. Developing your leadership capabilities will help you improve the way you and others feel about your workplace and promote more productive organizations. Learning to be a better leader also enhances your feelings of self-worth and meaningfulness. Although circumstances and contexts vary, the process of leadership remains relatively constant.

Self-Coaching Action

Take a few moments to reflect upon the following questions and make some notes in your leadership journal:

• What difference do I want to make?
• Are my actions making the difference I want to make?
• Do my actions help bring out the best in myself and others?

How aligned are your answers with your aspirations? What does your answer mean for you? What do you need to be doing differently?

Notes

1. This statement has been attributed to Peter Drucker, but in a search of the literature we can find no specific source for it.

2. James Harter and Amy Adkins, “What Great Managers Do to Engage Employees,” Harvard Business Review, April 2, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/04/what-great-managers-do-to-engage-employees.

3. We measure engagement by combining responses to these 10 statements: (1) My work group has a strong sense of team spirit; (2) I am proud to tell others that I work for this organization; (3) I am committed to this organization's success; (4) I would work harder and for longer hours if the job demanded it; (5) I am highly productive in my job; (6) I am clear about what is expected of me in my job; (7) I feel that my organization values my work; (8) I am effective in meeting the demands of my job; (9) Around my workplace, people seem to trust management; and (10) I feel like I am making a difference in this organization. A five-point response scale is used.

4. For more on this, see Barry Z. Posner, Bringing the Rigor of ­Research to the Art of Leadership: Evidence Behind The Five ­Practices of Exemplary Leadership and the LPI: Leadership ­Practices Inventory (San Francisco: The Leadership Challenge, A Wiley Brand, 2015), www.leadershipchallenge.com/Research-section-Our-Authors-Research-Detail/bringing-the-rigor-of-research-to-the-art-of-leadership.aspx. Some studies claim that managers account for as much as 70 percent of the ­variance in employee engagement scores. Some of this, no doubt, is because of differences in how engagement is measured. Still, the point can't be denied that how your leader/manager behaves has a ­substantial impact on how you feel about your workplace and the energy you put into your work.

5. See, for example, Jonathan Mozingo Wallace, “The Relationship of Leadership Behaviors with Follower Performance: A Study of Alternative Schools” (PhD diss., Regent University, August, 22, 2006).

6. Gregory G. Mader, “Stepping Up to the Plate: Leadership Behavior in Baseball” (Master's thesis, Concordia University, January 2009), 59.

7. Barry Z. Posner, “An Investigation into the Leadership Practices of Volunteer Leaders,” Leadership & Organization Development Journal 36, no. 7 (2015): 885–898.

8. Barry Z. Posner, “It's How Leaders Behave That Matters, Not Where They Are From,” Leadership & Organization Development Journal 34, no. 6 (2013): 573–587.

9. Arran Caza and Barry Z. Posner, “Good Leadership Is Universal: Evidence of Global Similarity in the Sources of Followers' Satisfaction with Leaders” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Academy of Management, Kauai, Hawaii, March 2015).