Modern conceptions of leadership suffer from a serious limitation. Although it is generally acknowledged that effective leaders must possess a number of sometimes seemingly contradictory qualities and skill sets, the idea that a strength taken to an extreme can be a weakness does not seem to have registered fully in the practice of management.1 The notion that inadequate performance results from underdoing any of the requisite skills — delegating, giving direction, communicating, cooperating with peers and so forth — is well established and reflected in most formal systems designed to assess managers for selection or development. However, the idea that performance problems can just as easily spring from taking a given behavior to an extreme has received far less attention.
Perhaps the focus on overdoing hasn’t been as sharp because its problematic aspects are not immediately obvious — after all, leaders often must go to extremes to meet tough challenges. It is difficult to draw the line, however, between making the serious effort required to get things done and going too far.2 A problem commonly seen in recently promoted senior executives, for example, is their difficulty in adjusting their skill sets to the requirements of their higher-level jobs. What had, in their previous positions, been a seemingly inoffensive, even useful, tendency to get heavily involved in operational detail can... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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