What is Leadership To You?
Mathew Stefan put up a nice graphic on something obvious, and yet it needs to be said. I do not know any leaders who would precisely agree with this question. What is leadership to you?
Let me give some thought to get your thoughts going.
Finding leaders who can bring a team together with passion and purpose is critical and at the same time you need someone with integrity as he notes and not someone who secretly has his own ambition. That is way too common.
Others rule by fear and then the team just follows the supposed genius who will not take advice.
Finding all of the above with the ability to see and connect with HQ at the same time is not an easy challenge. Hiring managers must be able to narrow the list by some means as interviewing for 8 priorities is not workable. Our business finds transparency, teachability, and servant leadership to be three to focus on always.
Specifically, I think his depiction of the pie chart, Use of Power being a smaller pie than Use of Influence is on the mark. Leaders who get people to want to follow them are infinitely stronger than those who only make them follow.
Interestingly, I would give more space to Self-awareness and back off on “Listen first” because listening first is a good principle that comes right out of empathy. Great leaders or common?
What is Leadership to You? What Would You Add or How Would You Focus?
Notably, we try to tease such thoughts out of hiring managers. We see everyone would have their own tweak of the above chart.
As management recruiters, we have deep experience in what works. We also have a passion for openness to hear the specific needs of hiring managers. Some would say flexibility is a key for example. Each company has its own specific circumstances and values. Finding a leader who can really be on the same page with you in leadership, teachability, and transparency is no picnic. We do a ton of work to dig up such people from your industry and check them out. The results are fabulous.