The Extraordinary Leader : Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders

Secrets for developing leadership and competitive advantage in any organization

The Extraordinary Leader is a research-based book about leadership. It analyzes 200,000 assessments from 20,000 managers and presents new insights that demystify this complex subject. It clearly establishes the importance of developing great leaders versus being satisfied with merely good ones, and highlights the link between leadership behavior and an organization's performance.

From the authors' research, a new model of leadership emerges that challenges long-held beliefs about leadership competencies. The authors identify 16 competencies that tower above all the others-­­the ones that separate great leaders from the average. One of the book's major breakthroughs is its focus on the importance of maximizing strengths as opposed to merely correcting weaknesses. Further, the importance of balanced strengths is introduced: when strengths are clustered in one area, the leader is less effective than he or she could be with strengths in different areas.

John H. Zenger, D.B.A., is the CEO and co-founder of Zenger/Folkman, a firm that employes evidence-based, positive methods to strengthen organizations and those who lead them. In 1994 he was inducted into the Human Resource Development Hall of Fame. He is the author or co-author of seven books on leadership and teams and is considered one of the most authoritative voices on improving organizational performance and developing leadership.

Joseph Folkman, Ph.D., is the president and co-founder of Zenger/Folkman. He is a renowned expert in the field of survey design and data analysis. His passion to provide feedback and facilitate change is the source of his professional success. He is the author of four books: Turning Feedback Into Change, Making Feedback Work, Employee Surveys That Make a Difference andThe Power of Feedback.