Elevating Under-Performing Leaders: A Powerful Path to Impact
In this 6-minute video, i4cp Senior Vice President of Research Rob Cross highlights the strategic value of raising poor performers to average: not just moving average performers to excellence.
Let’s be honest—many team leaders today are failing. And organizations are failing to arm these critical people leaders with strategic levers they can use in today’s distributed workplace.
Distributed work now extends beyond geographic location. It spans functions, expertise, time zones, and work schedules—demanding that leaders adopt a new skill set to be truly effective. Unfortunately, many companies fail to recognize this shifting scenario or take meaningful steps to address this leadership deficit.
Enter i4cp’s latest report: Leading from Anywhere: Driving Results in the Age of Distributed Work(opens in a new tab). Authored by Rob Cross, i4cp’s SVP of Research, this report moves beyond the tired remote-versus-in-office debate, offering a compelling exploration of how high-performance organizations are excelling through a more comprehensive approach to enhancing leadership effectiveness.
Many companies focus efforts on elevating good managers to become great managers, but the most significant productivity gains—up to 32%—come from moving poor managers to average managers. Our research found that even modest improvements, when strategically targeted, can deliver up to a 6X performance impact.
The report outlines six core leadership capabilities that set high-performing leaders apart:
- Team culture
- Structure
- Talent practices
- Well-being
- Boundary management
- Technology
Simply put, effective leaders do more than check in—they coach, prioritize, and eliminate the noise of unnecessary complexity that has become common in today’s distributed workplace.
If new ways of thinking about leadership development or distributed team effectiveness are on your radar, this report is essential reading—and well worth sharing with your entire C-suite.
Does Rob's video pique your interest?
- Check out the companion tool for Identifying Negative Leadership Archetypes.
- Read the full report Leading From Anywhere: Driving Results in the Age of Distributed Work.