Encyclopedia of Leadership

1.7

THE LEADERSHIP RESULTS EQUATION

Inspired by Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger, and Norm Smallwood.

Much has been written about the attributes of a successful leader—those hard-to-define terms

such as character, habits, skills, motives, personal traits, and style. Yet neither leadership

attributes nor financial results are sufficient in themselves. Besides having the “right stuff” as

an effective leader, you need to use that stuff to produce business results. This tool will help

you ascertain your own leadership attributes and make optimum use of those attributes to

achieve four areas of results. The four areas go beyond financial measures to include organiza-

tional and employee results, customer results, and shareholder results. A leader is successful

only when meaningful results are achieved in all four areas. Thus the equation:

Attributes ×Business Results

➠

Effective Leadership

Both leadership attributes and business results are necessary, and feed off each other.

In their best seller, Results-Based Leadership,David Ulrich et al. define a “Model of Balanced

Outcomes.”
Process-centric
Organization Investor
Results Results
Internal Focus External Focus
Employee Customer
Results Results
People-centric

Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School Press. From Results-Based Leadership: How leaders build the business and improve the bottom line,by
Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger, and Norm Smallwood. Boston MA. 1999, p. 31. Copyright 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; all rights
reserved.

SECTION 1 FOUNDATIONALCONCEPTS 21

What you are:

✔values

✔motives

✔character

✔traits

What you know:

✔abilities, skills

✔technical and professional knowledge

✔business knowledge

What you do:

✔leadership behaviors

✔competencies

✔leadership style

Organizational and employee results:

✔aligning organizational culture with strategy

✔maintaining strategic focus

✔leading and managing people

✔developing individual and organizational capabilities

Customer results (internal or external):

✔understanding your customer base

✔customizing for customer needs

✔creating long-term relationships

Shareholder results (external investors, internal sponsors):

✔responding to the organizational environment

✔getting the numbers

✔managing financial capital

Leadership attributes Business results