The One Thing in Business You Just Can’t Shortcut

You want to be an extraordinary leader of people and businesses?  Simply put, you have to work at it.  You have to make it a discipline.

Learn and Internalize the Traits and Functions of a Leader. I am still amazed at the proportion of business leaders who can’t describe the traits and functions of an effective leader. It is the strangest thing that, despite it being among the most important elements of business success, there is very little formal leadership training available. The business world seems to expect that natural leaders will, like cream, rise to the top, and others will fall by the wayside. But leadership can be learned, refined, and strengthened. It is a discipline that requires commitment, work, and practice.

As outlined in my 2007 book, The Source of Leadership, I read hundreds of works on leadership and found that virtually every guide distills down to a relatively limited set of traits and functions.

Leadership Traits: The healthy, high impact leader is:

·      Self-defined: Intimately knows their values, beliefs, higher purpose, and vision of the future, and expresses them clearly.

·      Forward thinking: Envisions exciting, positive possibilities for the future.

·      Credible: Possesses competency and displays consistency and congruency in words and behavior, such that others have a deep confidence in their abilities and character.

·      Inspiring: Listens deeply to others to discover a common purpose, then gives life to their vision by communicating it so that team members see themselves in it.

·      People-oriented: Openhearted, with a genuine love for people.

·      Energetic: Possesses a deep reservoir of positive energy and the ability to generate new energy throughout the vicissitudes of organizational life.

·      Curious: Acutely inquisitive and eager to learn.

·      Focused: Able to concentrate energy and attention in the pursuit of an objective.

·      Courageous: Able to make the tough calls and perform the tough tasks; has a propensity for taking risks.

·      Organized: Able to coordinate and direct activities in a functional, structured whole.

·      Supportive: Strengthens others by fostering an environment that encourages the taking of risks, collaboration, self-leadership, and recognition; facilitates the transformation of challenges to personal growth

Leadership Functions.  The healthy, high-impact leader:

·      Builds a values-based core: Creates an organization’s ability to say, in the words of James Collins and Jerry Porras (Built to Last, 1994), “[T]his is who we are; this is what we stand for; this is what we are all about.”; this is the organization’s “stake in the ground.” 

·      Generates ideas: A thought leader, identifying new associations and connections, and originating new or alternative concepts, approaches, processes, and objectives.

·      Forms a vision: Processes ideas and possibilities into an organizational objective.

·      Builds a plan: Creates and defines the optimal path connecting vision to results.

·      Engages a team: Recruits, engages, and inspires people to realize the vision.

·      Builds a responsive structure: Creates a structure consistent with the high-velocity, highly complex, interconnected existence in which we live; a permeable, flexible structure that is highly adaptive to changing conditions.

·      Creates accountability: Fosters a culture and implements systems requiring each individual to contribute their share within a collaborative environment.

·      Produces results: Achieves the vision in the most efficient, holistic, and measurable manner.

The Drivers of These Critical Traits and Functions. My work in The Source of Leadership focuses on the following drivers of these traits and functions:

·      Present awareness - drives all traits and functions

·      Openness - drives the traits of forward thinking and curiosity and the functions of generating ideas and forming a vision

·      Clarity of self - drives the traits of self-definition and people orientation and the functions of building a values-based core and engaging a team

·      Intention - drives the traits of being focused and organized and the functions of building a plan and producing results

·      Personal responsibility – drives the traits of achieving credibility and courage and the functions of building a plan and creating accountability

·      Intuition - drives the traits of self-definition and being inspiring and the functions of forming a vision and building a responsive structure

·      Creativity - drives the traits of being inspiring and energetic and the functions of generating ideas and forming a vision.

·      Connected communication - drives the traits of being inspiring and supportive and the functions of engaging a team and creating accountability.

GROW and SELL Advisors, wholly-owned by Traversi & Co., LLC, is a premier sell-side M&A advisory firm – a boutique investment bank – serving the lower middle market.  Visit us here.

For a short video clip on this topic, click here.