Who's the Leader?

2024 is a bumper year for elections across the globe – by the end of the year up to 64 countries will have held their elections, representing a combined population of about 49% of the people in the world. The results of which, for many, will prove consequential for years to come. But what makes a good leader?

Often the difference in quality of leadership can go a long way to explaining the difference in performance between companies, and sometimes countries.

Traditionally however those that have excelled in their roles are elevated to managers or leaders – but they don’t always know how to explain what made them successful, or how to engender it in others.

Alan Benson (Carlson School of Management), using microdata on the performance of sales workers at 131 firms, found evidence consistent with the Peter Principle, which suggests that companies prioritise current job performance in promotion decisions, at the expense of other observable characteristics that better predict managerial performance.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3047193

A CMI nationwide study into the state of UK management and leadership delivered some staggering figures to support this theory:

• 82% of managers are “accidental managers”
• 52% of managers do not hold any management or leadership qualifications
• Workers who rate their manager as ineffective are significantly more likely to leave their organisation than those who say their line manager is effective (50% v 21%)

Understanding what makes a good leader goes a long way to ensuring that organisations promote or employ successful managers and leaders. But where do you start?

Establishing what ‘good leadership’ looks like, makes it considerably easier to find and grow your leaders for today and tomorrow.

Using a mix of consultancy interviews, profiling assessments and technology, GFB can help you understand what makes your current managers successful and how to use that information to identify future leaders.

The information we gather is translated into compelling, objective data and meaningful insights that aren’t just delivered to you in a confusing report but talked through in in detail by our consultants so they make sense to you.

If you would like to understand more about how we support leadership recruitment and development please contact us on +44 (0) 333 090 2580 or email info@gfbgroup.com