New book and online assessment show leaders how and when to adapt their styles and skills
As long as people have dreamed of that elusive state called peak performance, they've encountered the old problem of balance. The search for excellence seems to drive us towards a state of absorption; in other words, it pushes us towards imbalance. This problem becomes very visible when organizational leaders are driven in ways that unbalance their skills, attitudes and practices. For instance, leadership sometimes calls for forcefulness, sometimes for enabling others. But how and when should the leader switch between styles? The answer to that does not often come naturally. The human tendency is to heavily favor one side or the other – to be, for instance, detail-oriented but never see the big picture or visionary but never pay attention to details.The Versatile Leader is a new book (Pfeiffer/Wiley, 2006) that guides readers down the sometimes confusing road to balance in leadership skills.
Leadership versatility, as defined by subject experts Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser, means achieving a balance between pairs of competencies or aptitudes that complement each other. Versatile leaders learn not only how to have enough of both sides of the pair, but also how to avoid having too much of one side. In their research, Kaplan and Kaiser assessed scores of senior managers. When most managers are presented with two opposing approaches, they found, they lean strongly toward one and are biased against the other -- and their bias is often counterproductive.
Although leaders are familiar with the ideas of balance and versatility, say the authors, the field of leadership development has overlooked it.
We recently had the privilege of helping the authors introduce the Leadership Versatility Index, a new online version of the 360-feedback assessment that Kaplan and Kaiser used in their research. (Visit the trial survey.) The Leadership Versatility Index is matched with the book—the book explains the conceptual model of leadership and development, while the LVI is the vehicle for applying it.
The new assessment provides specific 360 degree feedback to leaders about their application of leadership skills. There are two ways to learn about the new assessment:
1. Take the Leadership Versatility Index trial.
2. Contact us for a 21-page sample report (PDF)
