Ink Spots Matt Paxton
Leadership is an attribute that has interested me for years. What makes a person an effective leader? Is it personal charisma? Is it respect from within the organization? Is it fear? Is it the ability to communicate effectively? Is it possibly a mix of all of these and more? What common traits have great leaders throughout history had?
Traits that I associate with effective leaders include decisiveness, good communications skills, being effective delegators, good listeners, integrity, honesty, being good learners, empathetic, leading by example, being humble yet not without ego and being goal-oriented.
Leadership can be situational. Not all leaders we associate with greatness were/are great in particular situations. Great wartime leaders are not necessarily effective in peacetime. Winston Churchill is a great example. His leadership during World War II kept Britain in the fight until the United States’ entry into the war and the eventual allied victory. He served a second term, unremarkable, term as prime minister in the 1950s, though his advanced age and poor health hampered his effectiveness.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine appears to be a leader who has been effective both in peacetime and war, though Ukraine has really been at war since 2014 when Russia occupied Crimea.
Others can be effective in many situations. George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower and George Washington proved to be great military leaders who were also successful political leaders.
I imagine most of us who’ve reached at least middle age have had bosses with varying leadership styles. We may have suffered with an autocratic boss, a micro-manager, or a boss who takes credit for his or her subordinate’s work. But some of us have been fortunate to have bosses that wanted their co-workers to thrive while moving the organization toward its goals.
I think that good leaders are, by definition, good mentors. They understand that strong organizations have a culture of training and development for their staff, and actively cultivate leadership qualities as a part of staff development. Not everyone is cut out to be - or wants to be - a leader, but good leaders are always looking within their organizations for people that show promise as future leaders.
I’ve read that good leaders need to have a healthy ego; I think we’re seeing many leaders in business and politics with over-inflated egos. A leader with a healthy ego will see his or her role in the business as important, but not essential. My first boss at The News-Gazette, Tad Humphreys, used to say that no one was indispensable, and he meant all the way to the top.
I think that’s a good attitude to have. It’s interesting that the status of oncevaunted leaders like Jack Welch, who ran General Electric, and who’s leadership style was once admired and emulated, is being reevaluated in light of their companies’ subsequent performance. His style of arrogant, top-down management is still evident in American business – think Elon Musk – but seems to be less in favor. Longterm, I think we will see that companies that are more collegial in their management style tend to do better in the marketplace over time.
