Leadership Courseware Blog

Editor’s Note:  A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with John N. Mangieri, Ph.D., co-author of the book, Power Thinking: How The Way You Think Can Change The Way You Lead, and creator of Power Thinking: The Strategies of Outstanding Leaders a workshop to help leaders to become more effective decision makers. I asked Dr. Mangieri if he would be interested in writing an article for our blog and he graciously agreed, but asked if I could provide some insights with respect to what he should write about.

I posed  four questions that I thought would be interesting to our readers. Dr. Mangieri’s responses not only answer the questions I posed, but further provide insight as to the value of using the Power Thinking strategies to enhance decision making. With Dr. Mangieri’s permission, his responses follow.

LC – What is Power Thinking and how is it different than any other thinking?

While numerous research investigations could be cited to show the relationship between cognition and leadership success, in the interest of non-redundancy, I will only cite three at this time.

The Institute for Effective Management (IEM) conducted a study of exemplary leaders. They found that no single style of leadership consistently produced success. For example, in some instances, autocratic leaders were found to be excellent. In other instances, persons who used this style of leadership were ineffective. The same was true of other leadership styles, as there was no evidence to favor one approach over the others.

What was a consistent finding of this research was the relationship between cognition and leadership success. IEM found that, regardless of the leadership style used by an individual, the ability to reach correct decisions, to effectively solve problems, and to think creatively were behaviors which exemplary leaders regularly exhibited.

This research study also said that these highly successful leaders “thought on a higher and different plane”. The finding does not mean these individuals were geniuses. Rather, they possess high levels of competence in the areas of cognition related to leadership success.

A second research investigation important to understanding the relationship between cognition and that of leadership success is the Hay/McBer International CEO Study. In it, the leadership attributes of 55 CEOs from top-performing corporations located in 15 countries were studied. These leaders were found to have: international adaptability and were strong in analytical thinking, broad scanning, conceptual thinking, and decisive insight. While international adaptability is not a cognitive skill, all of the other findings are. Thus, cognition is not merely a skill important to American leadership success but internationally as well.

The third research investigation of significance to understanding the relationship between cognition and leadership success focused on the study of what was called “power thinkers”. A power thinker is a person who: (1)  is considered to be an excellent leader; (2) possesses exceptional levels of ability in the areas of decision making, problem solving, and creative thinking; and, (3) leads an organization that consistently has a high level of performance success.

In this study of power thinkers, it was found that there were 23 cognitive skills important to their success as leaders. A test which I co-authored — the “Yale Assessment of Thinking” (YAT) —which has been administered to over 90,000 professionals in the United States and in numerous foreign countries has yielded some very important information relative to contemporary leaders. Data from this measure has consistently shown that in several of the aforementioned 23 cognitive skill areas, leaders were found to need “significant improvement” if they were to attain higher levels of leadership success.

LC – How did Power Thinking come about? What led up to your co-authoring the book? What problems were you trying to address?

Cathy Collins Block and I decided to write this book for two reasons. First, since only 11% of all leaders have ever been taught strategies for optimalizing their decision making, problem solving, and creative thinking abilities crucial to leadership success, the majority of leaders do not have the requisite information to engage in a program of self-improvement to address the areas in which deficiencies on their part are identified by this test.

Second, Richard Hoerner, a highly respected leader of Black Rock Incorporated, once said: “Most leaders do not know how ably decision-making is occurring on the part of persons who report directly to them”. Mr. Hoerner’s comment was given veracity in a study conducted by IBM, the findings of which include: (1)In the last six months, 30% of those sampled said that they’ve had to make one or more decisions on hope or luck; (2) only 24% of the respondents felt that they were perceived as thoughtful when making decisions in work situations; (3) 35% were aware of colleagues continuing a bad policy or program purely to avoid admitting the error or that money had been wasted; (4) 49% of the respondents were aware of poor decisions being made by colleagues due to unreliable or limited information; and, (5) 37% of the participants were aware of poor decisions being made due to relevant information being ignored.

Dr. Block and I wanted to do something to address these two conditions. We wanted to teach professionals the skills that would make them become better leaders. We also know that in many organizations decision-making is adversely affecting performance, and if we taught leaders how to be more proficient in thinking, that greater organizational success could occur.

LC- Who is using your Power Thinking model today? Why did they embrace the idea?

I am pleased to say that many, many leaders not only in the United States but also in numerous foreign countries are using the Power Thinking model developed by Dr. Block and me.  The book that we co-authored, Power Thinking: How the Way You Think Can Change the Way You Lead, was the top selling book in the country during the month of February, 2004. This book is popular internationally as well having been translated into Norwegian, Korean, Chinese and Russian.

Either Dr. Block and/or I has/have conducted programs for professionals from corporations from the private-sector such as American Express, IBM, Merrill Lynch, Boeing, Honeywell, Bayer Corporation, United States Steel, Volkswagen, and BB&T; for many government departments and agencies including the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, and Treasury; and for many state and local government organizations, healthcare providers, and school districts in the United States. These leadership development programs for professionals have been conducted in numerous foreign countries.

I think leaders have embraced the concept of power thinking for basically two reasons. Before either participating in a leadership development program that focused on improved cognition and/ or reading the Power Thinking: How the Way You Think Can Change the Way You Lead book, most individuals previously did not know of cognition’s relationship to leadership success. Second, most leaders took cognition for granted (i.e., viewed it as “something they just do”, sort of like breathing)

LC – How long does it take to master the model? What does it take to become a Power Thinker?

To answer your first question, let’s look at data on over 11,000 persons who have implemented the content of this program. These results show:(1) Program participants have become significantly more effective in decision-making as well as in their ability to solve problems quicker and with a higher degree of correctness than they formerly did; (2)They engage in “outside the box” type thinking more ably and frequently and have developed significantly more innovative actions than they previously did; (3)They have received higher job performance evaluations from superiors; (4)The units lead by them attained higher levels of performance; and (5)Within their respective organization, the leaders personally as well as the units that they lead have received both internal and external recognition for their efforts.

I think the appeal of the program is not only in the results just stated but also in the ease and quickness in which these gains can be realized. By spending approximately 15 minutes per day for three months implementing the process described in this program, most individuals can duplicate the results above in which past participants greatly improved their thinking (items #1 and #2), leadership skill (item #3), and the performance of the organizations they lead (items #5 and #6).

In my mind, the power thinking program is a very effective use of a person’s time. By spending approximately seven hours to complete this program, you can learn valuable information about your skill levels as a leader, become appreciably more highly proficient in the usage of thinking as you carry out your responsibilities as a leader, and the organization that you lead can experience significant performance improvement.

Editor’s Note – Our sincere thanks to Dr. Mangieri for his insights on Power Thinking and contribution to our blog.

Tags: decision making, Leadership, management, power thinking