By Robert Falcey
Acting President & Chief Executive Officer
We recently collaborated with The Conference Board to offer a webcast featuring Marshall Goldsmith, a longtime Leader to Leader Institute Board member and our Chairman, Frances Hesselbein. As Marshall says, top companies understand that sustaining peak performance requires commitment to developing leaders. More companies are taking note of research showing that companies that excel at this tend to achieve higher long-term profitability. There are plenty of successful leaders out there; Marshall and Frances spent 1.5 hours talking about how to help them become even more successful. This PDF of the slides used in the webcast will give you a high level look at what they discussed.
slides.pdf (409.91 kb)
As I listened to the webcast, I considered some interesting facts. The leadership development theories that are taught by top thought leaders are already well known by successful leaders. The challenge, then, is not a lack of understanding. Rather, the challenge is for leaders to use this understanding in their day-to-day work. This disconnect between theory and practice is hardly limited to the office. Most people know they should exercise. Of those people, plenty take that understanding and make a decision to join a gym or buy an exercise video. Of the people that join the gym or buy the video, how many stick with their exercise schedule 6 months down the line? There are many things we should be doing in our lives, and we know it. Only those who bring this understanding into their practical lives will succeed, whether we are talking about leadership development, personal health or something else important to us.
Here’s some research on this topic. Thanks to Marshall Goldsmith for letting us offer this to our readers for free.
leadership_is_a_contact_sport.pdf (99.89 kb)