There have always been two common attributes of people that have been associated with good leadership. The first is about a leader’s will and the second is about the vigorous pursuit of vision. This is manifested in their ability to impose their will on the direction of the business while carrying with them, the hearts and minds of their people. The way we talk about these people is that ‘they make things happen’ and they ‘just get things done’.
So having said that, it’s easy to see how important the traditional values of a leader’s will and vigorous pursuit of the vision is, but would it surprise you to know that humility is the third? And just as important in a C-Suite Leader’s values?
After all, if a leader really wants to get his organisation to achieve the goals they can force their will and vision on the business on their own, however, if they can balance these two necessary traits with some humility it will have a profound impact on the business. In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins had numerous examples of how will and vision could produce results, good results, while the leader was in situ. He also identified that humility was a quality that could build great results into the enduring mindset of the business. Clearly, what the balance of these 3 traits does is inspire the people in the organisation to buy into the leader’s pursuit of the vision. This creates the force of an entire organisation working towards the vision of their leader and that’s when organisations really perform.
With this awareness, are you thinking about the balance that your leadership team has? Will good, even great, results survive their own next career move?
This is what separates the good leaders from the great ones. Finding good leaders is not too difficult, but finding great leaders is a real challenge!
