Zenger | Folkman

Our History in Leadership Development

Founded in 2003 by Dr. Jack Zenger and Dr. Joseph Folkman, Zenger Folkman grew out of the ground-breaking research behind The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders (McGraw-Hill, 2001). After the success of their book, Jack and Joe decided they could help organizations even further by creating leadership training and development programs that made use of their unique research. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, Zenger Folkman is at the forefront of leadership training programs for some of the world’s biggest companies including Boeing, General Mills and the Marriott Corporation. Additionally, Zenger Folkman continues to broaden its offerings to help individual contributors become extraordinary performers, leaders become more effective coaches, and organizations to assess and implement areas of change.

The recent books, The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate (McGraw-Hill, 2009) and The Extraordinary Coach: How the Best Leaders Help Others Grow (McGraw-Hill, 2010), are part of our ongoing effort to help leaders, and organizations, become extraordinary.

An Unexpected, but Successful Partnership

Initially, Jack and Joe developed an unexpected partnership. Jack has spent over 50 years working in human resources for some of the largest companies in the world. Conversely, Joe is a statistically inclined organizational psychologist who has focused his career on building and interpreting human behavior through statistical models. Together, the two decided to develop a training and development company that was grounded in data and backed by practical ideas. While the partnership wasn’t immediately obvious, it has proven to be successful with companies around the world.