The Five Talents That Really Matter: How Great Leaders Drive Extraordinary Performance

A former Gallup Global Leadership Research and Development leader and the New York Times bestselling coauthor of StrengthsBased Leadership demystifies the aura and complexity surrounding high performing leaders through original research and interviews with highperforming global leaders.The leadership space is rife with myths, such as the belief that anyone can be a leader with enough effort or that a leaders strengths can be their greatest weaknesses. According to Barry Conchie and his business partner Sarah Dalton, these statements are unfounded. THE FIVE TALENTS THAT REALLY MATTER explains how highperforming leaders are talented in five essential ways.This book strips away the fluff in leadership and unveils and describes the traits and characteristics that actually determine highperformance leadership. These talents provide a template against which careerdriven managers and leaders can assess and develop their own capabilities. The five evidencebased talent dimensions are: Direction: Highperforming leaders describe a compelling, intrinsically good destination and help others understand that getting there will be worth the effort. Drive: This dimension hardly needs a description. We all know it when we see it: strong work ethic, tenacity, goalorientation... being a selfstarter. Influence: The ability to motivate, persuade, challenge, and change the minds of others. Relationships: People matter to outstanding leaders. They can build commitment and trust among the people they work with. Execution: Excellent leaders are obsessed with getting work done and how work gets done.Through meticulous research, assessment, and testing, Conchie and Dalton have built a database that predicts the talents and behaviours of the most successful leaders. In this book they present for the first the first time a scientific model that demystifies the aura and complexity surrounding high performing leaders.