Body Fat, Exercise, and Effective Leadership
The CLI rates individuals on specific leadership characteristics such as dependability, being organized, productivity, energy, originality, and farsightedness. In comparison to the ESP, it is thus less competency based and more attribute based. The various CLI attributes were compared for executives with different levels of exercise and percentages of body fat. Not surprisingly, when we looked at the attribute of energy, we found significant differences between those who rarely exercised (less than one hour a week) and those who exercised regularly (more than three hours a week). Of interest is that both the self and observer scores on energy were higher in those who exercised.
Other attributes for which the self scores were higher in the group that exercised regularly were productivity, dependability, and being organized. The overall leadership score (which is the average of all the scores) for self was also higher in the group that exercised. Again, we cannot infer cause and effect—we do not know if those who exercised had more energy because they exercised or if they exercised because in fact they had more energy or if both conditions were true. Lack of energy and lack of exercise may be self-perpetuating—less exercise may result in lower energy levels, lower energy levels may result in less exercise.
Leaders need not compromise their health in their efforts to be effective.
Along the same lines, we don't know if those who exercised more were productive, dependable, and organized because they exercised or because they worked at these attributes in order to have time to exercise. The salient point here is that in spite of investing three or more hours per week in exercise, those who exercised more had productivity scores that were higher rather than lower. Considering that the most common reason we were given for not exercising was lack of time, these data suggest that there are positive returns when time is invested in exercise.
Similar results were seen for those with high levels of body fat (more than 25 percent) versus those with lower levels (less than 20 percent). Both the observer and self scores on energy were higher for those with less than 20 percent body fat. In addition, both the self and observer scores on productivity were also higher for those with less than 20 percent body fat. It is interesting to ponder why those with more body fat were rated as being less productive; it could be tied to the fact that those with lower energy were likely to be perceived as being less productive.