Qualities Of An Effective Leader

When you think of leading or being a leader, what are the qualities you look for in a leader? Are those qualities people would use to describe you or you would use to describe yourself?

Even in these polarized days, we all look for leaders who possess

-          Integrity

-          Calm in times of crisis

-          Make decisions based on the benefit of the organization, not personal gain

-          Willingness to see the big picture, rather than just the immediate issue at hand

-          Communicate well / effectively

-          Inspire others to action

-          Confidence (not ego), especially in the direction being taken

-          Ability to explain decisions or actions effectively

-          Honesty

-          Willingness to take responsibility

-          Willingness to admit a mistake

-          Ability to change direction based on changes in the current situation

-          Fail fast ---- rather than continuing to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic

-          Plus others that I will add as we go down this journey

I worked for a large telecom company for 40+ years, mostly in positions in / around Information Systems / Information Technology.  I often threatened to write a tell-all book about how not to develop software.  I have (still) lots of stories about things that happened in my career that would make a wonderful Harvard Business Review case study on good / bad / ugly decision making.  Funny thing, as I have talked to many others in my field across industries, they all have similar stories.  Post retirement, I did a short consulting gig for a multi-national telecom company that was looking to do a major transformation encompassing their IT architecture across multiple subsidiaries. I created a presentation entitled “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”.  It described my former telecom organization’s process in trying a number of things that worked and those that were not quite so successful.  The various sessions ended up being an enjoyable, laughter filled time discussing what worked and what didn’t work, why we tried various strategies and avoided others, what was a short term gain but a long term bad decision.  It was a common experience across different companies and cultures --- American vs European

I ended my career in an executive position at my former telecom employer and had a Senior leadership position after leaving my former employer.  Throughout my career, I always told my teams that I was a storyteller.  I was not a rambler, but a bona fide storyteller.  A core belief of mine was that my organization’s members were much more likely to remember a story I told (and it’s underlying message) much longer than just giving them directives.  That bore out a number of times.  I remember on one occasion after I had left organization 3 years previously. I was exiting the elevator in the lobby of a building I was working at the time.  As I exited my elevator some former co-workers were exiting another elevator.  They told me that they had just talked about me in a meeting that they had all attended.  They were discussing an issue and one of the attendees stated, “if Mike had been here, he would have told us this story …….”.    The remembrance was verbatim. The story was a perfect fit for the situation.  As a manager and a leader, you look to have a meaningful impact on the people around you.  You want to have a lasting impact that benefits them and helps them to grow as people, managers, and leaders.  Their feedback in that lobby was one of the greatest compliments I could ever receive as a leader ---- much more than any awards or promotions or recognition that I could ever have received.  They remembered a lesson I tried to impart and applied it to a current situation.  Another attendee in that meeting will probably remember that story many times over and many years after I’m gone. 

It's not that I have had great wisdom to impart --- though I consider myself intelligent.  I do, like many others, have experiences ---- some great and some not so great ---- that benefit others around me. 

One of the most important qualities of a good leader is to be able to communicate effectively and to be able to inspire others to action.  Leaders who don’t have anybody following them or just have involuntary followers are not  really leading ---- they are leaders in title only.

My hope with this blog is to be able to share some of my stories --- the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Hopefully, it will benefit you or at least make you see things through a different lens.

We change the world by benefiting each other --- sometimes one step or one story at a time.