The Five Talents That Really Matter

How Great Leaders Drive Extraordinary Performance

By: Barry Conchie, Sarah Dalton

Narrated by: Barry Conchie

A former Gallup Global Leadership Research and Development leader and the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Strengths-Based Leadership demystifies the aura and complexity surrounding high performing leaders through original research and interviews with high-performing global leaders.

The leadership space is rife with myths, such as the belief that anyone can be a leader with enough effort or that a leader's strengths can be their greatest weaknesses. According to Barry Conchie and his business partner Sarah Dalton, these statements are complete BS. The Five Talents That Really Matter dispels the fluff in leadership literature, unveiling the traits and characteristics that truly determine high-performance leadership.

This book serves as a guide, stripping away misconceptions and providing a template against which career-driven managers and leaders can assess and develop their capabilities. The five evidence-based talent dimensions are:

• Setting Direction: High-performing leaders guide their organizations through complex situations and articulate the value that so many employees find motivational and engaging.
• Building Energy: Driven by a burning work ethic, Talented leaders set an exacting example. They measure progress, and recognize that the most Talented employees beneath them demand their greatest attention and support.
• Exerting Pressure: Talented leaders assert a clear point of view and persuasively drive change and improvement, never settling for average outcomes.
• Increasing Connectivity: Outstanding leaders prioritize people, establishing effective followership through purposeful and ethical behavior, and demonstrating care and concern for those they lead.
• Controlling Traffic: High performing leaders understand their organizations, driving superior performance by establishing protocols and guardrails while showing agility and flexibility when circumstances change.

Through meticulous research, assessment, and testing, Conchie and Dalton have built a database that predicts the talents and behaviors of the most successful leaders. In this book they present for the first the first time a scientific model that demystifies the aura and complexity surrounding high performing leaders.

Critic reviews

“The Five Talents is one of the sharpest and most practical books on leadership I have read! If you lead others, you need to read this book. If you hire or develop leaders, read this book and use it as a daily guide. It is a roadmap for developing sustainable and high performing teams.”—Tom Rath, New York Times Best-selling Author on Wellbeing and Organizational Leadership

“A game changer for CHRO’s attempting to drive performance focused on the definition and assessment of the most critical leadership talents. Data-driven and with actionable insights, this book addresses topics as important as succession planning, DEI, and leadership selection with strong, research-based authority.”—Ali Bebo, CHRO of Pearson

“This is a wise book that will change how serious people think about leadership. Conchie and Dalton bring refreshing clarity to a complex and convoluted field by elucidating the tortuous relationship between individual traits and organizational context. Their secret—meticulous science.”—Don Ronchi PhD, Senior Advisor at White Wolf Capital

“I highly recommend this book, which will challenge and broaden your thinking of leadership. It is blunt, fact-based and provides piercing insights that I will incorporate into my own leadership journey.”—Kevin Lobo, Chair and CEO of Stryker

“I loved reading this. It made me think deeply about people and strategy decisions I made in my career and how they could have been improved or, in some cases, how spot on they were. If you allow yourself to absorb the lessons in this book, there is no hiding from the truth and what is the right thing to do.” —George Borst, Retired President and CEO of Toyota Financial Services

“The Five Talents is a practical unlock around the dominant strengths that define truly standout leadership and takes this framework to how you can recruit for the five key talents using the same rigor you would use to make other critical decisions. It’s a highly efficient and well-researched work that will take your impact as a leader to a new level.”
—John Clendening, Founder and CEO of Earned Wealth

“Conchie significantly advances the science of leadership prediction and performance development.”—Connie Rath, President of The Clifton Foundation

Insightful, Practical, and Refreshingly Human

The Five Talents That Really Matter is one of the most grounded and actionable leadership books I’ve read in recent years. Rather than offering abstract models or personality frameworks, the authors focus on innate leadership dispositions that truly distinguish high-performing leaders — from how they think and communicate, to how they manage complexity and bring out the best in others.

What I appreciated most was the clarity and humility of the approach. The book avoids buzzwords and instead provides sharp insights, real examples, and direct questions that push you to reflect on your own leadership style with honesty. It’s not just about how to lead — it’s about understanding whether you are wired to lead at scale, and in what context.

A must-read for executives preparing for major transitions, boards evaluating C-suite candidates, or leadership advisors who value depth over flash.

The negative tone

It was a very negative book. There was some useful information, but it was drowned out by the manner in which it was presented. So often it is not what is said, but rather how it is is said. The author kept referring to their research, but it was said in a manner in which we had to accept it at face value. This was not an uplifting book.

Engaging, insightful, and rigorous—A Must-listen for aspiring leaders.

I started listening to "The Five Talents That Really Matter: How Great Leaders Drive Extraordinary Performance" by Barry Conchie and Sarah Dalton this week, and I’m thoroughly impressed. The narration is outstanding, with a smooth flow that makes the complex subject matter highly engaging. The story not only captures your attention but also resonates deeply, thanks to the authors' extensive experience and commitment to rigorous research.

What stands out most is how the book challenges popular leadership myths by grounding its insights in the scientific method. This is not just another leadership book filled with generic advice—it's a thoughtful exploration that answers complex questions about leadership performance, making it invaluable for those passionate about hiring and developing truly effective leaders.

The authors also speak directly to the "...disruptors, agitators, challengers..." in leadership roles, emphasizing the need for these qualities to drive positive change within organizations and, by extension, benefit broader communities.

Moreover, the book offers practical tools for assessing leadership, adding even more value to its content. If you're serious about leadership candidate selection and development and are looking for a resource that combines theory with actionable insights, this audiobook is a must-listen.

Outstanding treatment of Leadership

Five Talents That Really Matter is a well-researched, data-driven analysis of what talents are at the core of great leaders. Barry Conchie and Sarah Dalton are not only sound research experts, but they put into practical terms how to find great leaders through a structured assessment process that separates the wheat from the chaff. If you listen to audio books, this would be the best 10 hours and 38 minutes you could spend on the topic of leadership. It should be required reading/listening for every executive team and board member. It creates a clear gulf between pop culture books on leadership and fact-based, scientifically sound leadership assessment and performance. It dismantles the popular falsehoods that seem to run rampant in today’s culture. It creates a path to building strong leadership within a company, along with practical, easy to understand examples. I applaud this effort, because I have seen these principles put into practice effectively in the commercial world. Well done, Barry and Sarah

The Author Is As, or MORE Biased Than The MANY He Criticizes - He's selling his assessment, more than educating you.

As much as he does, make some great and valid points. he's are woefully biased.

This is essentially an extended pamphlet to sell his product.

The many problems they ignore.

1 ) ANY self-report assessment of any kind can be gamed if you know how to answer.

This book is not an exception, but actually gives you the answers to the most challenging questions in their assessments that they recommend to their clients.

Since you may be forced to answer these questions in a leadership interview, you may as well play the game & learn the VERY BIASED & context specific " right " answers.

The author criticizes branches of science WAY outside of his own statistical expertise.

1 ) Unlike Daniel Kahneman who admitted it, those who are experts are NOT above bias & often have higher than average overconfidence bias BECAUSE they're experts.

They are AT LEAST as subject to the same biases as everyone else.

The author of this book is either ignorant of this, or ignores it out of his own interest.

2 ) The author basically indicates that talents are innate and there's really nothing you can do about them.

It's awesome if you can find a ready baked " Talented " leadership candidate, but in the REAL world, you may have to train them into the position.

That's something this author claims is virtually possible.

3 ) He wrongly and I think deceptively indicates that all leadership traits or talents as he calls them are innate and there's nothing we can do about them, that is, they're genetic.

This doesn't square with the broader scientific consensus that nature / nurture outcomes are broadly a 50/50 split.

This is consistent with somebody who's selling a product of exactly this nature.

Once you know how they answer a self-reported test, they will supposedly, inevitably & invariably be successful according to the results with an 80% ish correlation.

It's a self -serving over generalization & oversimplification.

He doesn't seem to understand that correlation is NOT causation.

4 ) It's clear from his genetics argument, that he knows as close as you possibly can to f*** all about epigenetics which is the interaction between environment and genetics he doesn't even mention.

Since he didn't address it, it strongly indicates a lie of omission or complete ignorance of that topic.

Without at least a vague notion of what epigenetics is, he's not qualified to make the broad sweeping statements about areas of science he obviously knows very little, or nothing about.

5 ) His ignorance of, or intentionally omission of neuroscience & neuroplasticity is highly suspect and biased.

All this said, I recommend anybody in the leadership space, in any capacity should read or listen to this book, while keeping in mind all of what I've said above.

He speaks on & omits topics he's nearly, or completely clueless about to serve his own sales agenda.