Fitness for Leadership

Sharon McDowell and Judith Steed

Evidence is mounting that workers who experience poor health are less productive, often make poor decisions, have higher rates of absenteeism, and in general contribute less to the organization than healthy workers. That's why approximately 80 percent of U.S. businesses with fifty or more employees have some sort of program promoting good health.

But how does the health of leaders affect their ability to effectively lead their organizations? To begin answering this question, researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership in Colorado Springs have been studying the health and physical activity of participants attending Leadership at the Peak (LAP)—a weeklong program for senior and top-level executives. Data are collected and compared with the results of two instruments, the Executive Success Profile (ESP) and the Campbell™ Leadership Index (CLI^®), both of which require a self-assessment of performance on various leadership indices as well as a rating by an observer group—observers being bosses, subordinates, and peers. Our analysis shows that there is a significant relationship between increased health risk and low scores of leadership effectiveness.