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The 49% Solution

by Mark Walztoni, February 2008

Why are our services important to organizations that value talented people? A three-year study by Leadership IQ, a global leadership training and research company researched the reasons for leadership failure. They found that the top five reasons for failure were:

  1. Poor Coachability (26%) The inability to accept and implement feedback from bosses, colleagues, customers, and others.
  2. Lack of Emotional Intelligence (23%) The inability to understand and manage one's own emotions, and accurately assess other's emotions.
  3. Low Motivation (17%) Insufficient drive to achieve one's full potential and excel in the job.
  4. Wrong Temperament (15%) Attitude and personality not suited to the particular job and work environment.
  5. Insufficient Technical Competence (11%) Lack of functional or technical skills required to do the job.

The study indicates that technical incompetence is the least likely reason for failure, which is understandable since that's where most pre-employment screening questions are focused.

Yet if you add up the top two reasons, deficiencies in coachability and emotional intelligence, you get 49% of the reasons why leaders fail. We assist our clients with the "49% solution," the leader's ability to assess, accept, and adjust their behaviors for success in every new career challenge.

A leader in a new role must understand which past leadership behaviors to leverage or release. As author Alan Toffler notes, "The illiterates in the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."