Here is an excerpt from an article written by George Bradt, a regular columnist at the Forbes magazine website. To read the complete article, please click here.

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Most leaders are unbalanced. They are relatively stronger in some areas than others. The secret to making them more productive is to let them play to their strengths, while at the same time bringing in someone to work with them that has complementary strengths.

Eisner and Wells at Disney

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner was the organization’s enthusiastic, visionary leader. When I worked at the Disney Institute, our team met with him and the room was electric. He applauded our best ideas, built on them, went into excruciating detail to make sure the creative vision carried through everything, and demolished our bad ideas without a second glance. When he approved things, we were inspired to get going.

But then we had to stop.

Because once we’d sold Eisner on the idea, we had to go to then COO Frank Wells to make sure it would work. Wells focused on the business side, making sure we knew what we were going to invest, how, over what time frame to make the business proposition work.

The two were stronger together than either was on his own. Having Wells there allowed Eisner to let his creative instincts run. Having Eisner there allowed Wells to focus on the practical side of things.

Ivester and Zyman at Coca-Cola

At the start of each year’s annual planning process at Coca-Cola  then President Doug Ivester would send out a note laying out his expectations. To reinforce the importance of consistency and follow through, he would attach the notes he’d sent us in each of the previous three years.

At one meeting he said, “We need to be consistent.” At the next moment, then Chief Marketing Officer Sergio Zyman replied, “Well, I’m inconsistent and proud of it.”

There was a fiery tension between the two. Ivester was the southern accountant who had joined Coca-Cola as controller and then became CFO, president, and eventually CEO. Zyman was the Mexican advertising and brand guy who was passionate about surprising and exciting consumers.

Each was incomplete on his own. Together, they were amazing.

Each of you has your own favorite example of this: Jobs and Wozniak, Gates and Allen, Anthony and Cleopatra, Martin and Lewis.

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Make your organization ever more ADEPT by Acquiring, Developing, Encouraging, Planning, and Transitioning talent:

• Acquire: Recruit, attract, and onboard the right people
• Develop: Assess and build skills and knowledge
• Encourage: Direct, support, recognize and reward
• Plan: Monitor, assess, plan career moves over time
• Transition: Migrate to different roles as appropriate

Please click here to read about each step in the playbook

Please click here for YouTube videos highlighting each step

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The New Leader’s Playbook includes the 10 steps that executive onboarding group PrimeGenesis uses to help new leaders and their teams get done in 100-days what would normally take six to twelve months. George Bradt is PrimeGenesis’ managing director, and co-author of The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan (Wiley, 3rd edition 2011) and the iPad app New Leader Smart Tools. Follow him at @georgebradt or on YouTube.