The Leadership Challenge Model
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® resulted from an intensive research project to determine the leadership competencies that are essential to getting extraordinary things done in organizations. To conduct the research, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner collected thousands of "Personal Best" stories—the experiences people recalled when asked to think of a peak leadership experience.
Despite differences in people's individual stories, their Personal-Best Leadership Experiences revealed similar patterns of behavior. The study found that when leaders are at their personal best, they:
Model the Way
Inspire a Shared Vision
Challenge the Process
Enabling Others to Act
Encourage the Heart
This led them to write their first book, The Leadership Challenge and develop a quantitative instrument—the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)—that would measure the leadership practices they uncovered.
The Impact of the Leaderhip Challenge
Over its 20-year history, The Leadership Challenge has sold over one million copies and has been translated into 12 languages. The LPI is one of the most widely used leadership assessment instruments in the world. More than 350 doctoral dissertations and academic research projects have been based on The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® model.
"This is the Swiss Army Knife of management tools."
—Debra Sikanas, cofounder, Baudville, Inc.; past president, National Association for Employee Recognition
