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Productivity amid change.
LEADERSHIP IS PREDIcated on the ability to mobilize others to accomplish a vision, goal, or task. Leaders can't do everything; they get other people to do things. They increase their capacity to get more done through delegation and follow-through. They set expectations, get the best people to do what needs to be done, and oversee the relationships to ensure that destructive or self-interested behaviors don't subvert the common purpose.
Leaders with people acumen select the right people, motivate them, get them working well as a team, and diagnose and fix problems with coordination and social relationships. Real leaders show enthusiasm for selecting people who are better than they arewhether or not they have worked with them before-and then manage those people to lift the organization to new heights. They motivate their people and develop them as conditions change, retaining those who advance the business and courageously deselecting with dignity those who don't. Such leaders show a pattern of accurately identifying other leaders' talents, helping them flourish, or easing them into other jobs where their talents fit better.
Leaders with people acumen get the most out of their people by setting clear goals, then giving feedback and coaching judiciously to help achieve them. Most use some key performance indicators (KPIs) that not only measure progress in quantitative terms but also influence behaviors. A KPI may be as simple as the percentage of customer calls answered in the first minute or as broad as corporate profitability measured against competitors. They watch for problems that might impede achieving the KPIs and give people...