What The Best Leaders Have and Do

Empowering others and listening are such important qualities for leadership. When we work with groups in our programs we notice that leaders who are alienated from their workforce project their own preoccupations more than they listen. So your traits listed above including empowering others and the ability to motivate and inspire are vital. Thanks for a great list Duncan.

I can only identify in one word (almost!) that what the best leaders I have come across actually have and do is be a Contagion of a positive ‘Mindset’. Not just in respect of leadership in development of business revenue or whatever the goal, but also balance in the areas of life, health and relationships.

Stephen

The most important point figures last in the list. Leaders transmit their passion to the team in a sense that the team gets empowered, excited and finally share the passion unequivocally. The rest is routine and a given for any leader. He can be most efficient in all the points you have listed but if he is himself not passionate and cannot transmit the passion to the team he ain’t any good leader.

Great list Duncan, Billy has some good perspective on the need for listening.

I have noticed through my career that the leaders that practice “active listening” with an open mind, thoughtful restrospection, asking “non loeaded” questions, etc. and actually identify what people are saying – and then ACTING on it, leads to success.

Too often we are moving too quickly in business, and taking time to listen to those you lead, other leaders, and also those that may not be effectively leading (you can learn from bad as well as good) delivers a more comprehensive approach to leading.

Duncan, from your lists, I am imagining that the “dos” can reasonably be learned within a year or so with effort and discipline, yet the “haves” are probably more stable (i.e., natural/developed traits, not quickly learnable) characteristics of a person. This suggests that people are effective leaders or not, and those that are not very effective would need to make an enduring effort and then still probably would never be particularly effective. In other words, each of us is naturally endowed and developed through our experiences to have the characteristics (i.e., have) and behave (i.e., do) our way, and while we can further develop our leadership behavior or practices, it is not likely that we can acquire the more stable characteristics (i.e., “haves”) of effective leaders that we do not already possess . . . except perhaps through very disciplined effort over an extended period of time (5-10 years +). Coupled with the research finding that people generally enjoy the activities at which they are better (or naturally endowed and developed to perform), this thinking supports the construct of person-role fit and practice of selection, or that each of us will naturally be better in some roles than in others. Do you agree and why, as I suspect we could find others who might disagree, rightly or wrongly? I look forward to learning from your insight. Thanks!