What leadership traits make a leader successful?
I often think about leadership. What leadership traits distinguish a good leader from a bad leader? What makes a successful leader? In my opinion, a title does not make a leader. It’s instead what an individual does to inspire, empower, and drive teams and organizations forward.
I believe, perhaps naively, that an organization can be both financially successful and do good by its people, the community, and the world. Few organizations, however, actually achieve this lofty goal.
My leadership philosophy stems from many sources. I read voraciously about business and leadership. I am fortunate to meet with IT managers, business executives, and government leaders around the world. In these interactions, I hear firsthand how leaders are trying to solve big challenges and lead their organizations through a digital transformation.
Recently, I read an article in the Harvard Business Review about the previous CEO of General Electric. Over 15 years, he transformed the company into a digital industrial disruptor. Why did he succeed when so many fail, or at best achieve the status quo?
I’ve had the “fortune” in my career to work for many good, some mediocre, and a few truly awful leaders. Many of them made me question how some people move through the ranks to ultimate leadership of an organization. Too often, we see the worst examples of leadership at the highest levels.
Throughout my career, I’ve developed my own leadership principles and framework. I call this framework the six critical traits of a successful leader. I know this sounds very “McKinseyish”, but I think it works. I’d love your thoughts on it. I originally posted this article on LinkedIn, but I’ve updated it based on all the wonderful comments I received to that post.
The 6 Leadership Traits of Success
A successful leader is a rare combination of characteristics and skills. I believe different capabilities and styles are needed depending on the stage of a company, the challenges it faces, its financial status, or its goals. But there are some universal traits that are always needed.
Importantly, they are needed in combination. It’s not a matter of choosing one over the other. Although a leader may have to move one lever more than another based on the circumstances. But he or she still needs to embody all of them.
Frankly, I think we undervalue most if not all of these. We focus instead on whether someone is confident, assertive, or a real driver. I think those capabilities are subtexts of these traits. While often needed, they are not at the core of what separates good enough from greatness in leadership.
The Most Successful Leaders Are All of the Following:
- Inspirer
- Manager
- Operator
- Builder
- Transformer
- Empathetic
In this post, we will go into detail on the first three of these traits.
The Inspirer
Inspiring leaders are far less common than we need. But if you’ve had the fortune of working with one, that person most likely set the bar for you.
The key leadership trait to the Inspirer is vision. He or she sets a vision, and, importantly, believes it, drives toward it, and communicates it on a regular basis. This leader also ensures it is a shared vision, not only by the leadership team, but also by the entire organization.
Organizations led by an Inspirer have an energy and a passion beyond average because everyone truly believes they are changing the world in some way. An obvious example is business leader Steve Jobs, whose vision to do personal computing differently drove not only a cult-like following within Apple but among customers worldwide. Or Jeff Bezos, whose early vision to build the world’s greatest bookstore while focusing entirely on the customer completely changed the way we shop. And who, like all good inspirers, evolved that vision over time. And yes, both are known for less desirable traits too, but none that diminish their power to inspire.
Perhaps a better example of an inspiring leader who is also known for his humanitarian stance is Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya.
Inspiring leaders paint a compelling vision
The Inspirer is not afraid to take a stand, even if it is contrarian. In fact, this is often what makes them so inspiring. They fight for what they believe in, and they paint their vision in a way that inspires others.
“Those who truly lead are able to create a following of people who act not because they were swayed, but because they were inspired.” – Simon Sinek in his book Start With Why.
In talking to a venture capital friend, I asked her what the most critical trait is for the CEO of a startup. Her answer: having a clear vision and being able to communicate that vision in a way that inspires investors, employees, and the market.
Inspirers are needed at companies small and large, not to mention in political office, nonprofits, and religious organizations.
The Manager
This might be the most undervalued trait of all. I am consistently amazed when someone gets to the C-Suite or senior leadership, and they believe they no longer need to “manage”. After all, their direct reports are also senior leaders. So, in their mind, shouldn’t those leaders know how to manage themselves? Or that’s how the justification goes.
People management is needed regardless. I have worked for organizations who undervalue this ability and discipline completely. And others who painstakingly nurture and train managers, but still ignore this trait and skill set in their most senior leaders.
Everyone needs a manager. CEOs have a board of directors that ideally acts as that manager, making the leader accountable and giving him or her advice and areas to improve. So why do CEOs or other senior leaders believe they no longer have to manage?
The lack of management ends up fulfilling the prophecy outlined in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. If a CEO (or any leader) is not managing his leadership team, it results in a lack of trust, shared purpose, accountability, and teamwork. This then cascades down throughout the organization and across those leaders’ teams.
Another book that illustrates this well is The Advantage, also by Lencioni. The author accounts clear stories of the negative impact a lack of trust and inability of a leader to manage his team and company has on success.
Great managers give both positive and constructive feedback
What does it mean to manage? Among many other elements, it means you have clear agreement with your employees on their goals, metrics of success, priorities, and career aspirations. In addition, you are managing not only “what” that employee is doing to be successful but also “HOW” they are achieving those things.
I often say I have a “no asshole” rule. What I mean by that is I will not tolerate someone on my team treating others badly, no matter how smart or high performing they are. Because their success is being made at the cost of hurting others, which is not actually a success. This is also a clear sign of lack of management.
Great managers don’t wait to have career discussions only during the annual review period. They have these conversations on a regular basis. They promote and reward, or put employees on a development plan, based on those conversations and how the employee is doing.
Tactically, this means regular one-on-one conversations, where you are covering both business issues as well as their career and life.
Good managers communicate both positive and constructive feedback to their employees, rather than avoiding conflict by skirting around any issues with performance, behavior, or process. The bible on how to have these tougher discussions that so many managers avoid is Crucial Conversations. (The second book, Crucial Accountability is also awesome.)
Another book I love about how to communicate successfully as a manager is Radical Candor by Kim Scott. Someone recommended this book to me, because they thought the subtitle would resonate with me: “How to be a kickass boss without losing your humanity”. They were right! To achieve radical candor as a manager also takes compassion and empathy (see trait #6).
The Operator
I have worked for many “leaders” who were operationally excellent. They have well-established business plans, budgets, and processes. Everyone on their team knows how decisions are made. There are clear cadences around product planning, revenue goals, strategic plans, and other operational areas.
Great Operators know how to instill operational excellence without too much bureaucracy. Many follow best practices as outlined in the book Death by Meeting by, you guessed it, Patrick Lencioni. (Apparently, I’m quite the Lencioni fan.)
This skill set is absolutely critical to strong leadership. If leaders themselves do not have this leadership trait, often they will hire someone like a COO, Chief of Staff, or even a CFO to play this role. In this case, the leader still has a strong respect for operational excellence and makes sure the team or company has this discipline.
The problem I have seen is that too often divisional or corporate leaders are only Operators, and lack the other critical leadership traits of successful leaders. They are awesome at keeping the wheels on the bus but are not taking the risks or setting the vision to take the company or product to the next level. In fact, often these leaders are risk-averse because they have built their reputation and success on their steady, consistent operational leadership.
“There are many talented executives with the ability to manage operations, but great leadership is not based solely on great operational skills,” notes Sinek in Starts With Why.
In What Makes a Successful Leader Part 2 we review the additional 3 leadership traits: The Builder, Transformer and Empath.
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