过去十年培养领导力方面最重要的变化之一，就是将焦点从改正弱点，转为辨认及发展强项。随着这样的发展趋势，出现了必须澄清的三种谬论。

谬论1：强调强项，只是不切实际的社会学家所提倡的最新流行说法。

培育领导力方面的著名人士虽然直到最近才将强调强项视为可接受的做法，但这样的想法却早已存在。早在1967年，管理大师彼得·德鲁克（Peter Drucker）在他的经典著作《卓有成效的管理者》（The Effective Executive ）中就如此写道：

“高效的主管会运用强项来创造生产力。想要达到目标，就必须运用可取得的所有强项：同事的强项、上司的强项、以及自身的强项。这些强项是真正的机会。将强项化为生产力是组织存在的独特目的。这么做虽然无法克服我们与生俱来的弱点，却可使弱点变得无关紧要。”

有人想起德鲁克在五十年前就曾谈到这点，而德鲁克无论如何也不会被形容成煽情造势的社会学家。身为现代管理学理论与实务之父，德鲁克只是单纯地说明他认为最佳的管理实务，而非那些毫无道理的做法。

谬论2：过度着重强项，会变为弱点。

有些原本有利的事，若做得过头，的确可能会产生严重问题。就如同许多人曾指出的，人喝过量的水也会致死，但适量饮水是绝对必要。然而，领导力强项却非如此。大家所谓的过度运用强项，实际上是指过度从事某件运用强项的行为。若要明白这两者的差异，你可以问自己一个问题：“高管可能诚实过头了吗？”批评者可能是担心太诚实会让人变得过度直率而鲁莽。或许吧，但这并非不可避免，而且，会造成问题的是鲁莽与直率，而非诚实。

你也可以问问自己：“你能想到有哪一位高管过于战略性思考吗？”你或许会以为，过度战略性思考会让这位主管疏于关心战术性议题和日常事务。同样地，这样的情况或许会发生，但并非战略性思考让人们停止战术性思考。这两者是不同的行为，而另一种情况也同样可能发生，那就是：专注于未来的战略，反而让管理者更能认清与迅速调整每日战术，因为他们非常清楚今日的问题会带来的长期影响。

我们公司通常会用360度反馈来衡量高效主管应具备的16项能力的程度。这些特质包括追求成果、善于鼓舞人心、战略思考、诚实等。这些特质与良好的组织绩效高度相关，而所谓良好组织绩效包括更高的生产力、更高的顾客满意度、更佳的员工参与度、更低的顾客流失率与更好的获利率。如果将上述这些事做得太好会让强项变成弱点，那我们应该会看到，在某些特质的分数居于第90百分位数以上的主管，表现不如在同项特质上得分不错却非特优（如65百分位数）的主管，但这却与事实不符。能力项目得分越高的主管，公司绩效越好。

谬论3：强项总是伴随着弱点。

在一份由两家著名咨询公司出版的刊物中，资深人力资源主管们讨论到专注于强项而非弱点的好处。一名人员指出：“重点应该是抑制脱轨部分（derailer）吧…当你发现一个人在三个方面中有一项或两项表现惊人，往往另一项会有致命缺陷。”

果真如此吗？强项是否必然会伴随着缺点，就像俗语所说的硬币两面？为深入了解这个问题，我们挑选16428名领导人，取得他们的360度反馈资料。每一位平均获得来自直属部属、同事、上司的评估他们领导能力的十份评估报告。

如果设定得分位于第90百分位数以上的能力巧称为“强项”，而将得分在第10百分位数下的能力视为“致命缺陷”（或所谓的脱轨），下表呈现的就是我们的发现：

强项是否总是伴随着缺点？

简单的答案是：否。针对16000多名高管所做的360度领导力评估显示，其中只有不到10%的人在拥有一项卓越强项的同时也拥有一项致命缺陷。

*高管拥有一项或一项以上卓越强项（得分在第90百分位数）。

基本上，从资料中可看出，拥有致命缺陷的人当中有93%不具备任何强项。而且他们拥有的强项越多，拥有致命缺陷的可能性越低。结论？我们的资料显示，强项与劣势其实很少同时出现在同一个人身上。

是否有例外？有。已故的史蒂夫‧乔布斯（Steve Jobs）就是同时拥有卓越强项与致命缺陷的典型例子。然而，你若观察大多数的领导人，发生此种现象的机率只有2%。

我们相信，以强项为基础的领导力培育方式将会持续，排除这些长久以来的谬论之后，这种培育方式的接受度一定会大大提高。

英文原文

One of the most dramatic changes in leadership development in the last decade has been the shift in focus from correcting weaknesses to identifying and expanding on strengths. As this movement continues to catch hold, three myths have emerged that deserve to be dispelled.

Myth #1: Focusing on strengths is the latest fad from impractical social scientists.

While it’s true that prominent practitioners of leadership development have only recently adopted a focus on strengths as an accepted practice, the idea is far from new. As far back as 1967, in his classic book, The Effective Executive, management guru Peter Drucker wrote:

“The effective executive makes strengths productive. To achieve results one has to use all the available strengths — the strengths of associates, the strength of the superior, and one’s own strengths. These strengths are the true opportunities. To make strength productive is the unique purpose of the organization. It cannot overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is endowed, but it can make them irrelevant.”

One of us recalls hearing Drucker talk eloquently about this a good 50 years ago, and Drucker certainly would never have been described as a touchy-feely social scientist. As the father of much of modern management theory and practice, he was simply describing the best management practices versus those he thought made no sense.

Myth #2: A strength taken too far become a weakness.

There is no question that there are beneficial things a person can do that if taken to excess can become serious problems. As many have pointed out, people can die from massive doses of water, which in reasonable amounts is utterly essential. But leadership strengths don’t work the same way. When people think of overdoing a strength, what they’re really thinking about is overdoing some associated behavior. The distinction becomes easier to see if you ask yourself a question like, “Can an executive be excessively honest?” Those who think so might fear too much honesty would lead someone to be overly blunt or boorish. That may be so, but it’s not inevitable, and it’s boorishness and bluntness that would then be the problem, not honesty in itself.

Or ask yourself, “Can you conceive of an executive who is too strategic in her thinking?”Perhaps, you might assume that being extremely strategic could lead an executive to fail to focus on tactical, day-to-day issues. And again, that could happen, but it’s wrong to assert that strategic thinking causes people to stop thinking tactically. These are different behaviors, and it is just as possible that a strong strategic focus on the future can help executives recognize and quickly change tactics day-to-day because they can understand the long-term impact of today’s problems.

Using 360-degree feedback, our firm typically measures the strength of 16 competencies that most consistently describe highly effective executives. These are the traits — such as driving for results, being inspiring, thinking strategically, and being honest — that correlate most highly with positive organizational outcomes, such as higher productivity, greater customer satisfaction, better employee engagement, higher retention and better profitability. If, in fact, doing any of them too well turned a strength into a weakness, then we should be seeing worse results for leaders who score in the 90th percentile and above on a trait than for those scoring well, but not overly well — say at the 65th percentile. But that is not what happens. The higher an individual scores on competencies, the better their business results.

Myth #3: Strengths and weaknesses go together.

In a recent publication by two prestigious consulting firms, senior HR executives discussed the advantages of focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses. One of the participants said, “The key is to inhibit the de-railers….When you find a person with towering strengths on one or two out of three dimensions, often there’s a fatal weakness on another.”

Is that so? Are strengths linked inevitably with weaknesses, like the proverbial two sides of the same coin? To investigate this question, we selected a group of 16,428 leaders for whom we had 360° feedback information. Each received an average of 10 assessments from their direct reports, their peers, and their boss regarding their leadership skills.

If you arbitrarily describe a skill at the 90th percentile as a “strength” and a competency below the 10th percentile as a “fatal flaw” (or de-railer), you can see what we found in the chart:

Essentially, the results showed, 93% of people with fatal flaws have no strengths. And the more strengths they had, the lower the likelihood was that they would have a fatal flaw. Bottom line? Our data show that it is in fact rare for strengths and weaknesses to cohabitate in the same person.

Are there exceptions? Yes. The late Steve Jobs was a classic example of someone who possessed towering strengths and fatal flaws. However, our data shows that if you look at a large body of leaders, that happens only about 2% of the time.

We believe strengths-based development is definitely here to stay. Its acceptance will be enhanced as some of these lingering myths become dispelled.

杰克·曾格（Jack Zenger）、约瑟夫·福克曼（Joseph Folkman）|文

杰克·曾格是Zenger/Folkman咨询公司CEO、约瑟夫·福克曼是该公司总裁。

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