Effective leadership isn’t as common as you think.
There’s an amusing paradox: the majority of people think they’re more attractive and more intelligent than the average person. In other words, the average person doesn’t think they’re average. How can so many people be above average? Obviously, they can’t. The cold, hard truth is that lots and lots of these people are merely average—or even below average.
I often think about these statistics when I think about management. I’d be willing to bet a mid-size company that the average C-suite executive believes they have above-average leadership assets. After all, if they didn’t, how could they justify their big title, not to mention their (surely above average) salary?
All of this tells us two things. The first is that a dose of humility when it comes to our abilities as effective leaders is never a bad thing. The second is that maybe great leadership—and intelligence, and attractiveness—isn’t all that common.
To that end, here are four important leadership attributes that, if properly mastered, can help you become a manager who’s truly above average. Maybe even exceptional.
4 Attributes of Effective Leadership
1. Breadth
It’s probably not surprising that many managers are extremely fixated on their space in the sandbox. But such a single-minded focus can have major downsides.
Without a shared, holistic picture of the issues a company faces, and agreement on a systemic solution, a company’s limited resources are too often wasted on well-intended but often disjointed or competing solutions. Our common belief that “depth” makes us effective is only half right.
Our research shows that a defining characteristic associated with great leaders is that they consciously seek to understand the organization as a whole. They then actively exploit that knowledge to manage complexity and create value.
Instead of working out solutions in isolation, exceptional executives are drawn to explore opportunity and solutions at the points of divisional intersections—the “seams”—where there is tremendous potential for value to be created or destroyed.
Their ability to rise above organizational complexity allows them to conceive and execute solutions that benefit the whole through the results they deliver.
We call this having “breadth in perspective.” A big part of what makes a leader effective is understanding how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
2. Choice
Some managers, especially newly promoted ones eager to be seen as a team player, spend significant effort making sure everyone under them feels accommodated.
While the impulse to create such a seemingly harmonious work environment is understandable, saying “yes” to resource requests that fulfill needs tangential to the company’s mission isn’t empowerment—it’s abandonment.
Narrowing priorities and focus to strengthen execution is one of an executive’s greatest unifying contributions and most important leadership requirements. When the need to say “yes” overpowers the courage to say “no,” it risks fragmenting an organization.
What Makes an Effective Leader?
Over-inclusion can also inhibit leaders’ decisiveness. Fearful leaders delude themselves thinking the way to disperse risk is by getting lots of people involved. While including those who must live with a decision’s consequences is important, over-including people at the expense of action isn’t consensus-building, it’s hiding.
Newly appointed executives must have thick skin to withstand the inevitable hostility that comes with unpopular decisions – that’s what makes someone a leader. Avoiding it doesn’t disperse risk: it heightens it.
If you’re a good communicator, you should be able to head off serious blowback in most cases. Our common belief is that motivating our team by keeping them “happy” is another flawed understanding of what it means to be effective. A willingness to keep them focused and informed, by contrast, is a far better definition supported by leadership coaches all around the world.
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
– Warren Buffet
3. Context
Exceptional executives maintain a solid grasp on the ever-changing context of their industry and the larger business ecosystem. Their natural contextual intelligence lies at the intersection of insights into how their organization uniquely competes and makes money, and what is most relevant to the customers they serve—even when customers may not know themselves.
The ability to apply intimate wisdom of one’s business to emerging competitive threats requires leaders to have the ability to see trends and emerging possibilities on a multi-year horizon. Too often, however, leaders are stymied by competing investment options or caught flat-footed in the face of profit shortfalls.
Many articles have been written in business journals over the last decade and a half about Reed Hastings and Netflix, with good reason. In 2007, when the company started out, few could have imagined cable television subscriptions would be challenged by the growing consumer trend of streaming TV and movie entertainment online.
But consumer demand for a “my way, my time, my place” lifestyle has moved most entertainment and cable companies to provide on-demand services and online streaming. Hastings saw this coming; his initial rivals, Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video, famously, did not.
How to Be an Effective Leader?
- Think beyond your silo; you feel you only need to know your own swimlane but good leadership knows all the connecting swim lanes (breadth)
- You may feel you have to connect with those you need something from, but great leaders prioritize their network to include those they can help succeed (connection)
- You may think all you know is all there is to know, but in a world of the ever-present, maintaining your contextual intelligence is critical (context)
- Pleasing people and saying yes may feel good at the moment, but effective leadership learns to say no (choice)
Today, their names are a shorthand for a failure to keep up with the times, a signal of their membership in a lamentable club that includes the likes of Woolworth’s, Kodak, Tower Records, and so many others.
Netflix, on the other hand, is valued at over $200 billion and has over 12,000 employees. Hastings’s ability to anticipate, envision, and move deliberately toward radically new models and take advantage of opportunities in a sea of shifting market dynamics shows his mastery of his business context and competitive landscape.
These are the types of leadership assets that managers, too caught up in the chaos of keeping the lights on, too often neglect.
What confluence of emerging technological, logistical, demographic, economic, and consumer trends will he take advantage of next? What market, competitive and internal capability trends do you see in your own business? What will you do about them?
4. Connection
A leader’s ability to influence people increases exponentially when they connect with their constituents personally. This is why I always counsel leaders, especially those who worry that their soft skills, such as communication, are lacking, to meet with their team regularly.
- Pay keen attention to what motivates team members.
- Seek to understand what their priorities are, and what challenges they face.
- Focus specifically on the key points of intersection between your areas of responsibility and theirs.
- When it comes time to problem solve, meet with the purpose of clearly communicating your needs and aligning on mutual direction and expectations.
- Follow through on any commitments you make.
- Work consciously to be widely known as trustworthy.
- Work to build trust with others, as it’s valuable currency in every business.
- Finally, be grateful for and acknowledge the contributions of others.
Too often, we assume we should prioritize our relationship building by focusing disproportionate attention on those we can get something from. But the trade-off of this approach is clear: it means spending less time with others, people who would truly benefit from our guidance.
In contrast, what’s really effective is prioritizing our connections according to those we can help be more successful. Helping them is a surefire way to help the organization.
Look Beyond the Definitions of an Effective Leader
Effective Leadership Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum
Indeed, no person is an island, and our successes are usually made possible by the efforts of others. Powerful connections are made by exceptional executives who effectively communicate in thoughtful ways and reach well beyond superficial transactions.
Their legacy contributes to a reputation within their organization for consistently delivering business results and—just as importantly—for genuinely respecting and caring for those who deliver them. What makes someone a true leader isn’t just external metrics like growth and revenue, but the ways by which they achieved them.
You Can’t “Teach” Effective Leadership Skills
Anyone can get promoted to leadership, but being effective means leading in your organization’s context.
That’s why our leadership development consulting program cans the canned approach–and focuses on training in the context of your organization.