by James F. Fitzgerald, CPA
What are the Characteristics of the Most Admired Leaders?
There is an excellent book called The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner in which they list the twelve characteristics that our most admired leaders possess. At some level many of us want to be seen as leaders. If that is true, perhaps you could review this article with an eye towards measuring yourself against each of the twelve characteristics that these authors have found in their research.
The twelve characteristics, in order of their importance, are listed below:
• Honest
• Forward–looking
• Inspiring
• Competent
• Fair-minded
• Supportive
• Broad-minded
• Intelligent
• Straight forward
• Dependable
• Courageous
• Cooperative
As your eye travels down the list, are you instantly assessing how you would rate yourself against each of the twelve?
Honesty
It seems so obvious. As school children, we have all heard that the Father of our country, George Washington, never told a lie. President Lincoln is commonly called “Honest Abe.” As Americans we seem to deeply resent our leaders lying to us; even in those few instances where a “lie” is understandable. Maybe it is our Boy Scout/Girl Scout mentality, but we admire people who tell the truth and denigrate those who lie. Even our court system plays to this belief. If the accused tells the truth and confesses; normally the jail sentence will be less than if there is a trial.
Do you find yourself resentful if your management lies to you? Or was the Marine Colonel in the movie, Few Good Men, right (played by Jack Nicholson), when he said “you can’t handle the truth”? Do you have a right to expect that your company’s leaders will be truthful to you all the time? I can recall one of my neighbors saying that the new foreign owners of his employer told them that there would be no changes; everything was going to be same under the new leadership. I told him he was a fool (or simply naïve) if he believed that.
Many of our political leaders play games with the truth. Some would say they don’t respect our intelligence or again, they think the American (working) public simply isn’t very smart. What do you think?
Forward-Looking
We have all experienced the truly remarkable thinker who sees tomorrow when many of us are still struggling to finally understand yesterday. Don’t you experience wonderment when you try to understand how or why someone thought of sending your voice through a wire or more recently, transmitting your voice, thoughts, words without a wire. How would you rate yourself on this trait? Would interaction with people of different orientations help you to see more into the future? Are you receptive to looking at the world through the eyes of others? In my experience, children seem to be able to envision some elements of the future more clearly than we adults do. Perhaps it’s because they aren’t inhibited by the parameters that restrict us. Spending time observing children at play could be invaluable to someone who has an open mind.
Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter are only the baby images of the future to come. Would directed curiosity (albeit research to some) help you shape the future of your company? If you’re the boss, do you encourage and value the person whose ideas seem to be so far out at times? Do you welcome strange or possibly weird ideas once in a while? To quote George Bernard Shaw, “Some men see things as they are and say ‘Why’. I dream things that never were, and say ’Why not’?” Do you dare to choose Shaw’s approach or are you more comfortable following where the path leads?
Inspiring
If you have been lucky in life, you have met some inspiring people. They may have been teachers who brought their subject alive. They may have been athletes who climbed off the floor to lead their team to victory. They may have been your parents who got up and went to work everyday, even though they were sick or bone weary. In my case, I was inspired enormously by the generosity of my parents, particularly when things were especially tough.
How does one acquire the trait of Inspiration? I am not sure I know. The people I have known seemed to be living out their dreams and/or ideals. Surely they had been inspired by others. What’s the old expression, “They stood on the shoulders of giants”? Who are the “giants” in your life? Do you consciously strive to emulate them? For my money, the most powerful moment in the movie, Saving Private Ryan, was when the mature Ryan was standing at Captain John Miller’s grave, and tearfully asks his wife, have I lived a good life? Clearly Ryan had been inspired to lead his life more fully by virtue of having met this Ranger captain.
To be an inspiring person doesn’t mean that you have give a great speech on the steps of the Lincoln Monument. It simply means, “to infuse an animating, quickening, or exalting influence into.” So as you look at your future growth in your organization, do you think you can develop the ability to inspire others?
Competent
The dictionary says competent means “having suitable or sufficient skill, knowledge, experience, etc, for some purpose.” I have difficulty with this trait, given my competitive nature. I have always wanted to excel at things. Perhaps that is why my golf career lasted just two games. I quickly concluded that I might become competent some day but I was equally convinced that I would never be anything but (marginally) competent.
Do you look to achieve competency with all your core skills? If you have acquired basic competency, are you willing to work beyond that level? Are you willing to strive for excellence? We hear a great deal about the concept of Six Sigma; do you apply it to your skill base? Are you current in the study of your subject matter?
I have enjoyed writing about this subject so much that I have reached my word limit for this month’s column. I will continue the exploration of the other eight traits over the next month or two. Please give some thought to all twelve of these traits over the next few weeks. Hope this article has spoken to you. Carpe Diem.
James F. Fitzgerald is the president of James F. Fitzgerald & Associates, Inc., an Oak Brook, IL-based senior executive career transition and executive coaching firm. Phone: 630-684-2204. NEW email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .