GET THE FACTS ON TEAM LEADERSHIP
article reprinted from June 2005 issue of
Directions, the newsletter of EC Davis & Associates - www.ecdavis.com
Who makes the strongest leader? Who is most likely to exhibit desired skills? Can you predict any of this?
We at EC Davis regularly have used our Team Manager Development Center (TMDC) statistical database to help us pose some answers. Now, with over 1100 people in that database, Dr. Paul Marciano has firmed up some interesting findings for us to share with you.
Education matters. As this chart indicates, the higher level of education achieved, the higher people score on leadership competencies. In fact, individuals with a high school only education score approximately 25% poorer than those with more education.
Age doesn’t matter as much. Older TMDC participants do score lower when they have less education – and this does happen frequently. But the good news for the older set is that we don’t lose our ability to lead as we age! When analyzed together, only education level and not age predicts someone’s TMDC performance.
Women get the nod. Yes, women continue to outscore men – and women with higher levels of education really outscore men. College educated women score 20% higher on the TMDC compared to all others.
Experience in supervision doesn’t matter at all. We define experience as length of time in job, time in actual management, and number of people managed. We find it fascinating that there is absolutely no correlation between experience and leadership scores. In other words, whether you have a lot of management experience or only a little or none at all — it does not improve your likelihood of scoring well in the TMDC. One hypothesis would be that the competencies we measure (such as delegation, coaching, situational sensitivity) are not the ones most supervisors typically practice in their current activities.
Personality Factors are Important. Since 1999 all TMDC participants have taken the NEO-PI-R, a highly valid leadership personality instrument. We now have a large enough data base to report clearly that certain personality factors do correlate to leadership success. These are, in order:
(1) Trust
(2) Candor
(3) Activity Level
(4) Intellectual Curiosity
Additional personality factors which have some level of prediction for leadership success are Assertiveness and Tolerance of Diversity.
Most Needed Competencies. Among the 12 TMDC leadership competencies (see list on next page), Delegation, Coaching, and Facilitation are our lowest scoring overall competencies, while Performance Standards, Initiative, and Communication are the highest. If you just need to settle on a training program without time to assess skills, a good bet would be to concentrate on those overall low scoring competencies for your training.
Additional data is available at www.ecdavis.com. We welcome your comments and views on this and all Directions articles. Please direct them to info@ecdavis.com