People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1 - 39

edge and skills that help them grow
(unleash human potential).
[Name's] team regularly capitalizes
on new business opportunities (seize
new opportunities).
* Questions about leader's job performance
and level of engagement of the feedback
team; Examples of the 12 questions include:
[Name] is one of the reasons employees stay at the organization.
[Name] is highly effective.
Others have a strong desire to join
[name's] team.

Alcoa, Kemet, New York Life Insurance Company, Huntington Ingalls, and PepsiCo (for a
total of 71 participants and 497 multi-raters).
Below is a break down of demographics; participants also encompassed a variety of industries, functions, and countries.

The Findings
An analysis of the three surveys found statistically significant relationships among dimensions, actions, and job performance, including
employee engagement. That is, each dimension of leadership health predicted the effectiveness of leadership actions and leader job
performance as perceived by respondents
(correlations ranged from .3 and .7).

I am strongly aligned with the goals
of the company because of [name].

As illustrated by Table 1 (p. 40), leaders who
obtain high health scores correspondingly
obtain high job performance ratings (and low
health scores correspond to low job performance ratings).

We chose to beta test these surveys with six
major global companies, including: PBS,

The most notable finding shown above is the
emergence of spiritual health as the most sig-

I feel passionate about the work we
do because of [name].

Demographics
Participants

Multi-Raters

Male

47%

Male

60%

Female

53%

Female

40%

Total
Individual
Contributor

100%
2%

Total
Individual
Contributor

100%
8%

Middle
Manager

21%

Middle
Manager

28%

Senior
Manager

77%

Senior
Manager

56%

Non-manger/
1st line Supervisor
Total

100%

Total

8%
100%

nificant predictor of high job performance.
As indicated, those leaders who had a high
spiritual health score had an average job performance score of 78 percent1, compared to
those leaders with a low spiritual health score
averaging a performance rating of 31 percent. The 47-point gap is the largest among
the health categories. This finding offers fresh
and compelling insights for the field. The
research also delivered more confirming
results in this regard.
While these results indicate that alone each
of the health areas distinguishes top from
bottom job performers, it is natural to ask,
taking all of the health areas together, which
are most predictive of job performance?
The answer to that question is contained in
Table 2 (p. 40), which illustrates the predictive level of the leadership health on effective
leadership actions.
These results provide further and stronger
evidence of the importance of spiritual health
for leader success. Spiritual health was predictive of each of the effective leadership
actions, and social health predicted four of
the six. Although emotional health was predictive of only one leadership action and
intellectual and physical health were not
directly predictive of any of the specified
leadership actions, we know from Table 1
that each health was statistically significant
relative to perceived overall performance.
These results also reinforce the interrelated
nature of the model. Taking another look at
the data through the lens of employee engagement reinforces the power of the model as a
holistic approach to leadership. Once again,
high scores for each health area correspond
with high employee engagement scores.
Regarding the relative strength of the health
areas in predicting employee engagement
compared to job performance, the picture is
more complex. Table 4 (p.41) presents the
findings. Emotional, spiritual, and vocational
health areas were significant predictors of
employee engagement for male raters and
intellectual and vocational health areas were
significant predictors for female raters. These
findings are unexpected and interesting. Current research and thinking about gender differences in leadership (in terms of both
perception and development) are mixed and
VOLUME 38/ISSUE 1 - 2015

People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1