as i have been traveling lately, i have had a bunch of time to think about life and leadership. my wife & i have talked a lot about the things we could live without. in leadership i think there are those things that you can’t lead without… (i recognize the poorly worded sentence)
- integrity | stated in every book on leadership, recognized as a universal leadership truth and dispensed with as rapidly as a clerk can make a change error in your favor at the grocery store. we all have at least one area in our lives where this leadership value will be challenged, but our followers are expecting our best, all of the time, not just inside the hours of the work day. so be above board with your boss. don’t oversell your performance, the reality of a situation or hide in the fog of confusion in the work place.
- vision |have a techni-colored dream bigger than your currently reality but based on the planet earth; enough said
- strength | people don’t get behind those who aren’t strong in the direction of the organization and the delivery of objectives that it will take to get you there. I add to this strength the notion of determination in a leader to not give up; others feel this about you and watch for it in you as you face defeats along the way.
- enthusiasm |who doesn’t want to have some fun? all of us aren’t in the army and even if we have been we are done with that now. Charisma (natural, not contrived) and ‘pep’ might be some of the most under mentioned qualities that make for great leadership. bring some joy to your environment — the people around you need it.
- clarity |HOW are we getting there? or WHAT is expected?, simple and straight forward is what most contributing members on your team need. whenever possible, don’t be ambiguous.
- relationship |you wouldn’t hear about this all of the time if it weren’t in-fact missing from most work environments. you can have a big organization w/ big perks or a small organization with every possibility to really know each other and in both settings what most people desire is some connection relationally to the success of your endeavor. make it a habit to connect over a dinner, activity, exercise or refreshing beverage. get to know those around you — life is too short to not enjoy the process of getting to your goals.
- trust |synonym = freedom. leadership isn’t giving the goals and then every associated step about how to achieve them. help is nice, but ‘have to’s’ can be suffocating for developing the leadership in those around you. major in the strategic objectives and make it a practice to minor in the tactical execution. the more those around you succeed, the more latitude they ought to be given. success isn’t limited commodity.
see an essential missing? help us out and leave it in the ‘COMMENTS’ for the rest of us to glean from.
Hi Ryan,
Another essential that should be included is humility. To me, humility is vital for effective leadership. Humility is acceptance of individual limitations — I cannot do it alone — coupled with a sense of resolve to do something about it. Humility is admission of humanity, a sense that leader and follower are in this together which deepens a sense of trust. Better to admit a shortcoming, or a limitation, than to lead blindly into the unknown — I will enlist the help of others. That to me is the essence of leadership. I think we all would acknowledge the desirability of humility in a leader, but humility in my mind is still not included in the general population’s list of desired characteristics for a leader, perhaps because of what our expectations of a leader are or sadly because of what the term represents in our culture, i.e., the negative connotations associated with this word.
I thought this Time magazine quote by Sherron Watkins, former Vice President of Enron was well stated and telling: “I still wonder whether we truly recognize and value the appropriate traits in our leaders. We want honest leaders who are decisive, creative, optimistic, and even courageous, but we so easily settle for talk that marks those traits instead of action. Worse we often don’t even look for one of the most critical traits of a leader: humility. A humble leader listens to others. He or she values input from employees and is ready to hear the truth, even if it is bad news. Humility is marked by the ability to admit mistakes.” Time Magazine, pg. 35, June 5, 2006
PS: If you haven’t already read “Leading with a Limp” by Dan Allender or “The Starfish and the Spider” by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, definitely give them a read. Both are excellent!