I was having lunch with a leader – someone who I see as a mentor. He asked me what I thought the components of leadership were. As I am asked this question a lot, my standard answer is “there is no one answer to that question”. However, being on the spot and wanting to impress my mentor, I summarized what I thought was a good capsulation of leadership. There are four foundational components:
1. Respect
Respect will actually solve most problems, anything from relationship problems to policy issues. If we demonstrate respect, people will demonstrate it back and bridges will be built. Think of a critical problem you are faced with right now. If you ask yourself “what is the respectful thing to do in this situation”, you will likely see a clear answer. Sometimes we forget to frame things in this way because it is so simple.
2. Care
There isn’t one leader I know that doesn’t have fundamental care for the people they work with and a deep sense of mission. You can’t have leadership without total connection and care for others. If you are leading without care, things may go well for a little while, but as soon as you need someone else, they may not be around for you. Care has to be real, in the sense that it cannot be faked. And it has to be consistent. This even means having a sense of care for your industry, community and even competitive stakeholders. None of us succeed on our own and therefore need to care and nurture real relationships with all our stakeholders.
3. Authenticity
People are naturally attracted to what is real. It doesn’t matter your education, your experience or who you impress. All that matters is that you are genuine. You have to be yourself and you can’t fake that. If you find yourself in a different leadership situation and try to mask or change your approach to leading, people will notice and your effect may be stunted. The best example I can give is that we can be happy working for many kinds of leaders in many different situations if we trust them, and we trust them if we can see them fully as themselves.
4. The Indescribable Component
Some call it charisma and some call it attraction. It is an intuitive value that you give to others that attracts people to you. The beauty of this unknown attribute is that everyone has it, but it only emerges in the right situations. The point here is that this element of charisma is delivered and received differently by different people in different situations. The good news is that in the right setting, you will possess this indescribable quality. There is really not much to think about regarding this as you can’t manufacture it. What you can do is be aware of when you sense you are the most comfortable with people and situations and begin to notice where you seem to be delivering this value.
There is one more attribute that stands on its own, more as a catalyst than a component, and that is ambition. Without drive, passion and vision, respect can exist, but it does not have as much power. Most leaders I know are unknowingly, unaware, and unable to articulate exactly where their ambition comes from. Yet, they have internal drivers that push them forward into using the foundational components.
None of these attributes are easy to attain or can be learned in school. They are part of your value system as to how you operate in the world. So the good news is that with practice, you can be a successful leader and have an impact. We are all capable of leading, if we want to.