| Specific skills for specific strategies |
| McKinsey Classics | November 2017 |
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| Cultivating the right leaders for business growth |
A few years ago, McKinsey wanted to learn more about the relationship between specific leadership skills and revenue growth. We started with two large databases: one ours, on the growth performance of more than 700 companies, and another from the executive-search firm Egon Zehnder, with performance appraisals of more than 100,000 senior executives. We then focused on the overlap between the two databases: 5,560 executives at 47 companies across a range of industries.
For each skill—customer impact (which turned out to be the most important one), market insight, change leadership, and so forth—executives at companies in the top quartile for revenue growth scored higher than executives at bottom-quartile companies. Where the top team as a whole had strong scores, revenue growth also was strong, but we found no such correlation for solid but unexceptional top teams. Most significant, it became clear that specific leadership skills support specific strategies. To learn how companies can use these insights to build an executive team, read “Do you have the right leaders for your growth strategies?” (2011). |
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| Nudging the world |
| Some economists build abstract models of a rational economy. Richard Thaler, the 2017 Nobel economics laureate, studies and applies actual human behavior. Read “Nudging the world toward smarter public policy: An interview with Richard Thaler.” |
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