Results-Based Leadership

by Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger, Norman Smallwood

A landmark book, Results-Based Leadership challenges the conventional wisdom surrounding leadership. Authors Ulrich, Zenger, and Smallwood--world-renowned experts in human resources and training--argue that it is not enough to gauge leaders by personal traits such as character, style, and values. Rather, effective leaders know how to connect these leadership attributes with results. Results-Based Leadership shows executives how to deliver results in four specific areas: results for employees, for the organization, for its customers, and for its investors. The authors provide action-oriented guidelines that readers can follow to develop and hone their own results-based leadership skills. By shifting our focus to the connection between the attributes and the results of leadership, this perceptive new guide fundamentally improves our understanding of effective leadership. Results-Based Leadership brings a refreshing clarity and directness to the leadership discussion, providing a hands-on program to help executives succeed with their leadership challenges.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Management, Historical Romance

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1999

About the author

David Olson Ulrich is a university professor, author, speaker, management coach, and management consultant. Ulrich is a professor of business at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and co-founder of The RBL Group

Reviews

[Serhat Pala · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an entrepreneur, I know the importance of good leadership and Dave Ulrich gives you everything you need to know about good leadership in this book.

[Kimberly Landerfelt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worthwhile, just so hard to push through.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

First published in 1999, this book remains remarkably relevant to the ever-expanding global business world that has since developed. In it, Ulrich, Zenger, and Smallwood explain how to connect leadership attributes to results. In this context, I am reminded of what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton have to say about what they characterize as a “knowing-doing gap.” They assert (and I agree) that many executives know what must be done but, for whatever reasons, are unable to achieve the desired results. Hence the importance of the material in the first chapter. Four key points: Effective leaders produce results, one of the most important results is the development of other leaders, (e.g. Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, commits at least 20% of his time to mentoring GE’s middle managers), all organizations need a process, indeed a continuously improved system in place that produces such leaders, and leaders are needed at all levels and within all areas of the given enterprise. Then in Chapters 2-8, the co-authors respond to questions such as these:

How to define desired results?
How to achieve desired employee results by investing in human capital?
How achieve organization results by creating capabilities?
How to achieve customer results by building firm equity?
How to achieve investor results by building shareholder value?
How to become a results-based leader?
How do results-based leaders build others who are also results-based?

Ulrich, Zenger, and Smallwood make brilliant use of various reader-friendly devices that include hundreds of checklists, graphic figures, bold face, and real-world examples. Obviously, these devices focus the reader’s attention on key points but also facilitate, indeed accelerate periodic reviews of those points later. I also commend them on the “Notes” section that includes a number of enlightening annotations that accompany many of the citations. Just as Edison correctly reminds us that “vision without execution is hallucination,” Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger, and Norm Small remind us that that one result – if not THE most important result – of great leadership is that it produces other great leaders. Then and only then can desired results involving associates, customers, and investors be achieved and then sustained.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a somewhat refreshing look at the results side of leadership. I do have to say that I felt it made things a little simplistic. I am a firm believer that one cannot exercise their way or rate leadership on a scale of 0 to 100 their way to effective leadership.

[Lori Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A should-read book on performance management for knowledge workers, managers, executives, and entrepreneurs.