Guest post by Paolo Gallo who discusses leadership ahead of his latest book coming out.
Can I ask you a question? What word comes to mind when you think about the best leader you've ever worked with? Just take five seconds to think about it. I confess: I already know what your answer will be. You're thinking of words like Trust, Empathy, Integrity, Listening, Humbleness, Help, Authenticity, Passion, Altruism, Generosity, Energy, Optimism, Motivation. And now I'll confess something else: I've asked this same question at least 200 times to countless teams, students, managers, and employees in companies in 30 different countries.
What always strikes me is that no one - I repeat, no one - ever answers that a leader is someone who "doubles profits," or "cuts costs," or "increases share value," or "wrote a book" or "speaks four languages" or "has a degree from such and such university," even an Ivy League.
So what's the takeaway?
When we think about leadership, our minds and our hearts tell us to stop and reflect on human qualities, before considering any economic or financial outcomes or academic qualifications. But although this might seem plausible, it's also idealistic, if not down-right naïve. Is leadership really forged from an individual's character and personal qualities?
A question of leadership with Paolo Gallo
To find an answer this question, let's look at various disciplines such as psychology, history, and management, in addition to empirical evidence from academia. The psychologist Daniel Goleman, who rose to fame after the publication of his book Emotional Intelligence, wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review that became a classic: What Makes a Leader? In this article, he tells us that a person's IQ and technical skills are important, but emotional intelligence is the true sine qua non of leadership. As a reminder, the five components of emotion intelligence are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills.
The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has written the biographies of five US presidents. Her latest book, published in 2018, is entitled Leadership in Turbulent Times. In it she compares different presidents who held office during periods of conflict, and concludes that leaders need humility, empathy, self-control and self-confidence, These are personality traits that the author finds in the best US presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln.
But remember, self-confidence must be understood as a positive approach toward listening to "strong" people who don't think like we do, not "I'm the boss, so I'm always right." That's called narcissism, something entirely different, light years away from Leadership. If we think about management, the evidence is overwhelming. To cite the father of management Peter Drucker: "A manager does things right; a leader does the right thing." This insightful assertion helps us understand the essential role of Leaders, people who never lose their moral compass, or the ethical awareness that underpins their choices.
James J. Heckman and Tim Kautz, Professors of Economics at the University of Chicago, conducted research published in 2012 to ascertain the correlation between soft skills and success. In their study, entitled Hard Evidence on Soft Skills, the two authors write that soft skills can predict and produce personal and professional success.
The MIT Sloan School of Management recently proposed a different definition. Instead of calling them soft skills, let's call them smart skills, based on a book by Loredana Padurean. Guess what smart skills are? Adaptability, emotional maturity, humility, listening, multiple perspectives, productive inclusion, validation.
In my seminars I always ask participants to share a concrete example of leadership that they experienced. Their stories are consistently about someone who did something for them, without ulterior motives, when they found themselves facing personal or professional challenges.
A Leader is someone who helps...
