What makes a leader great?

Last time we asked the question - "What makes a great leader?" and in order to answer that, we had to look at what it is that a leader actually does. What really is leadership? It turns out that the function of a leader is to allow large groups to work in a coordinated and purposeful way. Then we started to look at what sort of skills leaders are encouraged to develop and which of those skills really make the difference between a leader and a great leader.

The skills that really make a difference are not the ones that many people assume are the important ones. Technical skill in whatever it is you are doing is fairly unimportant. How driven you are personally is not that important. The reason for this is that those skills are ones that don't scale. Being technically good as the leader doesn't make the group any better once you hit the capacity of that one leader to dispense technical advice. Being driven to succeed as a leader doesn't make the group driven to succeed. Those things are individual things. They have a scale of one. What matters when leading groups are skills that scale across the whole group - things that lift the whole group up, not just the leader.

So what are those skills? There are as many different opinions on that as there are management books on the market, but they basically fall into four categories - Authenticity, Presence, Vision and Teams. A great leader needs all four. Having one or two is good, but if you have all four, they work with each other to produce a great leader.

Authenticity is the ability of a leader to connect with people as a real person. Authenticity comes when your words and your actions match and when you have a genuine belief in what it is that you are saying and doing. So often you see leaders saying one thing but doing something different. The call for economy then the refusal to fly anything other than first class. People can tell when someone doesn't really believe what they are saying. When they are saying something because it's the right thing politically or the best thing for their career or whatever, but not what they really believe. Or when they say something with no intention of carrying through. 

Authenticity includes things like Integrity (which I am tempted to pull out as a fifth category all on its own). It's impossible to be authentic without some degree of integrity. 

People will follow someone who is authentic because authenticity builds trust and if you trust someone you are more likely to follow them.

Presence is the next quality of great leaders. While Authenticity builds trust, Presence is needed to help people see that authenticity. You might be absolutely authentic but if you sit in a corner and look disinterested then no one will know. Presence is the ability of someone to hold a space, whether it's a one on one conversation or a stadium full of people. It's not just stage presence (although that's handy) because stage presence is often just an act and thus inauthentic. It's more about being really present and involved when talking with people.

How often have you talked to someone and had the feeling that they weren't really listening? Were they constantly glancing at their phone? Did their attention wander? Were they distracted? All those things are signs that someone isn't really present.

When someone is really present in an activity, whether it's a conversation or a meeting or a presentation, their presence really comes through. The people they are interacting with feel included and genuinely interacted with. Again, this builds trust and helps a leader communicate their message.

Vision is the third quality of great leaders. Great leaders have a clear vision or goal for where they want to go and, even more importantly, are able to communicate that to others (using their presence and authenticity). There is no point in a leader having a great vision but not being able to get anyone else interested. Great leaders are able to articulate their vision clearly and in a way that not just explains what it is but explains the other person or people's part in achieving that vision. 

Some leaders have a vision but it's their vision. They are selfish with it. It's all about them getting to the goal (with maybe some help from underlings along the way). Great leaders make everyone feel part of the vision. It's not just their vision, it becomes everyone's vision.

The fourth quality of great leaders is the ability to build and grow Teams. After all, the main reason we have leaders is to scale coordinated action to groups larger than a handful of people. If a leader can't build teams then they can't scale.

Many leaders fall down here. They may have vision, they may have presence, they may be authentic, but if they can't build teams, then they can't scale the ability to achieve that vision.

Many leaders get so caught up in their vision that they forget to include others. Everything has to go through them because it's their vision. Some leaders try to bring in individual superstars rather than building strong teams. Unfortunately, a lot of management type courses seem to teach this sort of thing. They talk about the 10x developer. That superstar who can get 10x more done than regular developers. We get caught up in the search for individual excellence and forget that even the world's best developer can't deliver the whole thing on their own and still needs to work with others in a team. There is a reason many all-star teams don't play that well. Having the best players doesn't automatically give you the best team.

Great leaders are team builders. They encourage people to work together to solve problems. They facilitate the flow of information. They help build relationships across the group. They are generous with the information they hold and encourage others to act the same way. 

Good leaders may have one or more of these qualities. Great leaders need all four. Authenticity helps build presence. Presence and authenticity help communicate vision. Presence, authenticity and vision help build strong teams. Strong teams are what will help turn the leader's vision into reality.

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