A good leader has many desirable and necessary qualities, and while expectations placed on leadership differ widely, there is a strong consensus on the basic requirements. Most of these qualities are gathered and refined over the course of a career, while some are more likely to be inherent and to resemble traits one is naturally imbued with.
While many careers are based on honing a specific set of acquired skills, leadership leans less on this. That is not to say that leaders are generalists. The best leaders bring specific knowledge and experience to the table, but while that knowledge is often necessary, it is rarely sufficient. So what are the traits that make someone sufficient as a leader?
When organisations grow, they are staffed with a blend of complementary skillsets. Each department and every staff member fulfils a part of the whole, and while said parts are all necessary, their sum does not cause the success of the whole. It is the central task of the leader to assure the success of the whole.
Management is tasked with fulfilling the necessary, through planning and organising of finite departmental resources towards established goals. Leadership, on the other hand, is a permanent campaign against inertia and a battle with odds. A leader's most important attributes are his ability to develop knowledge, a masterful command of language, and the skilful use of leverage; when these prove sufficient, then inertia is overcome and the odds can be beaten. It is in this way that a leader proves his usefulness.
A discussion on effective leadership begins with how a leader knows his territory and formulates a plan; it moves on to understanding how people and resources are galvanised in pursuit of the plan; finally, we need to understand how the capabilities and productivity of the whole can be organised to exceed the sum of its parts.
#1 Knowledge
Knowledge of people, resources and the territory provide the foundations. True capability, however, is unleashed through context. The capabilities of people and resources are relevant in the context of a market; demand must be understood in the context of supply, quality in the context of skills and capabilities. A workable plan brings people, resources and territory into a cohesive whole.
Knowledge is the platform by which effort translates into productivity. By knowing the territory, and through a clear understanding of capabilities, better decisions achieve greater results.
A leader who knows himself is always in a better position to acquire knowledge. By knowing himself, he is able to know others without prejudice. When he relates well to the people around him, dialogue is open and knowledge and information circulate freely. Causes and effects are clearly understood, and in this way knowledge is put to its best use and produces the best results.
In this sense, pride is always the greatest adversary. A proud leader is prone to a heightened sense of self. He places himself before and above others. Over time he alienates people, and separates himself from the territory, displacing the importance of the organisation's outcomes, and elevating his personal values and ideals to a position of dominance. By contrast, humility builds trust and prioritises service to others over service to self.
By combining working knowledge of people, resources and territory, a leader sets the stage for the environment. His knowledge of self positions him favourably within his environment. When objectives, people and circumstances are held in proximity and proportion, that dynamic balance builds forward momentum.
#2 Language
The fulfilment of a desired outcome is contingent on the skilful use of language. We first describe the objective and the path that leads to it, and then work inside language to build the path that fulfils the plan. Language is the enabling principle; an endeavour occurs and lives inside language, and language also propels it forward.
To align people in the pursuit of a common outcome, a network must be built between trusted capabilities and resources, and the goals towards which these will be applied. There are many ways to express desired outcomes. The language that works best aligns with social and cultural standards, and invokes aspirations and values that are cohesive.
Audacious goals that exist outside of the proximity of these standards require a progressive approach. A leader must test his new ideas against the background of those that are long-established and deeply rooted. He must understand and deliver his ideas through a logic and rhetoric that speaks to the social and cultural standards inherent in the organisation, while moving his audience gradually towards the new ideas and objectives. If he succeeds in this delivery, then actions begin to synchronise across the organisation, and work starts to progress towards the desired outcomes, and in the manner that was intended.
The network that is built is the product of the skilful use of language, of the graduated delivery of a master message through a persistent appeal to the new ideas; the network is also the product of successful shifts in social and cultural understanding, which compound over time, and which transforms limiting beliefs and practices into ones that reach forward towards the desired outcomes.
When sufficient skill in language is lacking, then even the most powerful logic can be dismissed. In some cases a leader may choose to deliver a new idea summarily instead of progressively, to save time; in another instance he may overlook an embedded social or cultural conflict, resulting in the poor delivery of an otherwise sound idea; in many cases momentum simply fails to develop, due to extenuating circumstances, or due to a lack of critical capabilities in the organisation, in which case even the best ideas delivered with the most refined rhetoric fail to create the necessary cohesion.
Language and leadership are inseparable. A leader's standing is a function of the master message he crafts and the skill he exhibits in staging and delivering the communications that unify and mobilise people towards a common purpose.
#3 Leverage
Leverage is the application of knowledge towards increased productivity. It not only achieves more with less, it enables the substitution of the old with the new. When we discover leverage, we contribute new thinking to an existing problem or way of working. Something becomes obsolete, and in becoming obsolete it opens new opportunities.
The lever is the oldest emblem of this. To move an object we cannot shift by force, we step back from the fulcrum and trade a large movement for a small one — and once we have done it, we can do it again, and again. The lever works by abstraction: it lifts our attention from what is evident to what is possible, and shows that the answer often lies not in what we can see, but in what we have not yet found. What it uncovers does not become hidden again; it becomes a permanent part of how things are done.
A leader achieves leverage by realising greater outcomes with the same resources. When he studies his people and his resources, he uncovers potential that was previously hidden, and through his leadership he mobilises it — bringing new ways of working and new innovations into his organisation. This is how the whole comes to produce more than the sum of its parts: not by adding resources, but by drawing more from the ones already in place.
A leader also educates. By bringing innovations to light he demonstrates what is possible, awakening curiosity in those around him. He not only creates new opportunities but encourages others to look beyond what is given and explore the unknown — instilling courage, kindling hidden resolve, and inspiring the next generation of leaders.
A leader provides something that resists analysis. Identifying a capable leader, or explaining how one actually works, tends to escape us. An accountant or a logistician applies his principles methodically across industries; a leader's knowledge and experience do not transfer so cleanly, because leadership is not a method that holds steady from one situation to the next.
Knowledge, language and leverage are not fixed possessions. The territory changes, people change, and what once gave a leader his advantage can quietly stop working. What lets him keep developing all three — to keep learning, to keep carrying people with him, to keep finding leverage — is steadfastness. It is perhaps the only trait a leader can reliably be measured by. If he stays calm, thinks critically about his failures and his successes, remains honest with himself, with others and with the circumstances he faces, he remains sufficient as a leader, regardless of changing conditions. In this way he also continues beating the odds.