Hello and welcome to the OVERVIEW of The BEST Leader in 30 Days! My name is Sam Palazzolo, Principal Officer here at The Javelin Institute. So…

1. What is it that leaders are doing when they are at their personal best?
2. In order to make extraordinary things happen, what exactly do they do?

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (Authors of The Leadership Challenge) have been asking these questions since the mid-1980s, and similarly I have been asking leaders since 2008. The responses from leaders have been highly consistent, as well as illuminating! In analyzing the more than 10,000 interviews and case studies, as well as over 10 million leader survey responses from across the globe and from all kinds of organizations, industries, functions therein, levels within organizations, occupation types, respondent ages, as well as ethnicities, when leaders are doing their personal best, they:

• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart

Just don’t take my word for it. The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership framework has been subjected to rigorous testing for reliability and validity by nearly 1,000 scholars from around the globe. These scholars have used this model in their own studies of leadership as well. And every time, the Five Practices of Exemplary Leader have passed.

How Leaders make a Difference: The Five Practices in Practice

It turns out that leaders don’t do their best when they’re maintaining status quo or act/operate within a comfort zone. Leaders do their best when faced with adversity, crisis, setbacks, and great challenges. Difficulty it turns out, is the opportunity for greatness to emerge.

So, what explains why people in the workplace are more thoroughly engaged? The answer goes right back to the question about their work with their best leader. The quality of the leadership that they experience explains how they feel about the place at which they work. These feelings affect their motivation and has a direct impact on their performance and the organization’s bottom-line. The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership are directly correlated with employee commitment, retention, and performance. So, great leadership creates great workplaces that produce great results!

So…

• What exactly are these Five Practices?
• What are the leadership behaviors and actions therein that actually make a difference?
• In order to become great leaders, what can we do ourselves?
• And lastly, what can we do to assist others in improving their leadership abilities?

Let’s take a look at these Five Practices one at a time.