When Evelyn contacted me, she was getting ready to hold her annual team meeting. It wasn’t going to be a happy affair—for her or her team members. Their company, a mobile communications firm, had not had a good year.
Performance had been slipping since they missed a major customer deadline earlier in the year, and the repercussions continued to cascade. Most likely there was going to be some cost-cutting.
So it was going to be a very tense meeting. Under ordinary circumstances, that wouldn’t have necessarily bothered Evelyn. She had cultivated the leadership qualities of being a no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase, results-oriented leader. She easily held her own and kept a cool head during uncomfortable conversations.
But this time things felt different. She wasn’t sure if her usual approach and leadership qualities, which she believed had served her well thus far and had helped her rise to her current position, were best.
She felt that if this meeting was going to be truly meaningful, and if she was going to help turn things around, she was going to have to make sure the team wasn’t demoralized or defensive.
She was going to have to build trust. And to do so, it was going to require her to act in ways contrary to her usual strengths. So she chose to take a different tack. She was curious. She was authentic. And she was empathetic.
Transform Your Business With Navalent Consulting
Stop fixing the same recurring issues and prepare your organization for long-lasting success.
The Top Leadership Qualities: Curiosity, Authenticity, Empathy
Through several leadership coaching sessions leading up to the meeting, I tried to make the case for embodying each of the above traits of successful leaders. I like to think of them as the characteristics of a leader, not someone performing as one. This is a summary of what I told her.
Historically, as she very well understood, these qualities of a leader haven’t been valued. Book after book, and article after article, either taught or implied that we should always look like we have the answer, to always appear calm and collected.
To seem like almost a caricature of ourselves, with confidence so unshakeable that someone standing next to us could practically hear it. Research has explained just why people will follow confident leaders, even if they shouldn’t.
There’s plenty of research showing that people think they like confident, arrogant, or narcissistic leaders. Maybe because of our wiring, many of us are drawn to these people at high levels, whether they’re corporate leaders or political or religious ones.
But research also shows that in actuality, we don’t want these characteristics in a leader. Over time, they foster an environment that too often becomes toxic, unhealthy, and unproductive.
Fortunately, there’s another path for leaders uncomfortable with the old command-and-control structure. It requires other, more positive characteristics that have stood the test of time.
Qualities of a Leader: Curiosity
What You Don’t Know, You Don’t Know
Curiosity is when you admit “I don’t know it all, and there’s more to learn.” It makes other people want to step up and learn as well. When a leader thinks they have all the answers, the burden of questioning falls entirely to the followers.
This sort of attitude has a trickle-down effect on followers, who decide that they have a limited reserve of questions, so they guard them jealously, like a precious resource.
Without curiosity, there’s no motivation to understand why or how things are a certain way, or if they could be done better. In the worst-case scenario, followers may feel they don’t have to know anything outside the limited scope of their responsibility because the leader is going to have all the answers for them.
Curiosity should never be seen as a weakness. Great leaders understand that having an open mind and following questions wherever they lead, whether to happy or uncomfortable places, is a hallmark of wisdom, in business as in life. Through leadership consulting, skills like active listening and being effective communicators can help leaders better cultivate curiosity and emotional intelligence
Tip
A lack of curiosity isn’t just laziness, it puts you at a big competitive disadvantage. Not having an interest in what you don’t know, or what you should know, can really come back to bite you.
Qualities of a Leader: Authenticity
It’s More than Just a Branding Exercise
I’ll be the first to admit that “be authentic” has become one of the biggest cliches in the business world. At this point, if you don’t claim to be authentic, you may be looked at suspiciously. The same goes for “authentic” brands; everyone from spark plug manufacturers to dog grooming services has declared that their product or service offers buyers an “authentic” experience.
All of that said, I’d argue that the instinct is still correct, even if it’s been watered down. Employees, especially younger ones, often struggle to relate to the older, more hierarchical, and detached style of management. They don’t need airs of invincibility or someone who has it all figured out (i.e., isn’t curious).
They want good leadership qualities such as good communication skills, someone who can see the big picture—which means not taking everything so seriously. Simply put, they want a real person, not a caricature of a business person from Hollywood. The best leadership skills include the personal.
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
– William Shakespeare
Embrace Imperfection
To that end, followers want you to realize that you’re imperfect. They want to know your true self. They want to know who you are. They want to know your vulnerabilities. They want to know your anxieties, what you’re concerned about. Because you being yourself makes it safe for me to be myself.
And if I think you’re covering something up, or putting on a performance for me, or trying to keep an image up for me, that tells me it’s not safe for me to be myself.
That you expect me to project an image that’s just as fake, whether it’s projecting neverending drive or never needing to ask questions or second-guess decisions. Here’s the thing, though: no one can maintain a false image forever. It’s just not sustainable. Either they’ll burn out or get caught making a mistake—probably a big one—in a vain attempt to keep up appearances.
Qualities of a Leader: Empathy
We’re All in this Together, Right? Right?!
Like authenticity, empathy is another one of those terms that seem to be everywhere and touted by everyone. And also like authenticity, despite its pervasiveness it’s one of those leadership qualities managers must still strive to cultivate. When I don’t have to care, when I don’t express compassion for my team members, I’m sending a signal that they don’t really matter.
The issue—and Evelyn certainly thought so—is that a lot of leaders assume that having empathy or compassion is a slippery slope to lower standards. It’s a weakness. One day you’re lending an ear to someone who’s having a tough time, and the next day you’re letting them take three-hour lunch breaks, according to this thinking.
“I’m performance-oriented,” the leader tells themselves. “Put up or shut up.” The problem with this philosophy is how short-sighted it is, and that isn’t among the desirable qualities of an effective leader.
When I know you care, you actually get more from me. As a team member, I don’t care less about performance—I care more about it because I’m emotionally invested in the company and its leadership, and in the collective success of my teammates. The idea that I’ll start abusing any sort of goodwill extended to me feels like bad faith.
Learn more about what qualities make a good leader:
What Qualities Make a Good Leader: How Things Went for Evelyn
The Power of Signals
Think of these three leadership traits as positive signals to your team. Curiosity signals that you don’t know something and want to learn more. Empathy signals your acknowledgment that people aren’t automatons but have struggles and triumphs. Authenticity signals that you can be trusted—that you are who you say you are.
When it was time for the meeting Evelyn was understandably nervous, but she was committed to applying the best leadership skills discussed above, or at least trying to before abandoning ship. (Sometimes that’s the best we can hope for.)
When the meeting kicked off, instead of providing a harsh assessment of where things stood, she began with questions, asking the team things like,
- Why do you think performance has slipped?
- Where do you think we’ve fallen short?
- How do you think we can improve?
Where she normally might have given direction and offered solutions, she chose instead to draw out the team’s responses. As everyone got a chance to participate and provide a frank response, each person, including her, learned much more about how things worked (or didn’t). The conversation was driven by curiosity, not face-saving.
Then she put herself on the hot seat. It wasn’t comfortable, but she did it anyway. As a leader, how could I be doing things differently in my leadership role? she asked. How have I contributed to where we find ourselves?
At first, the team was silent, but then eventually began to brainstorm ideas, and offer thoughts, and clearly had keen insights on why things hadn’t gone well.
In her humility to admit she didn’t know everything—one of the traits of successful leaders—and that she may have been just as responsible for the company’s recent poor performance, she offered her team an opportunity to be candid. To be authentic. The winning attributes of a leader begin on the personal level.
How Top Leadership Qualities Come Together
One of the things they learned was that they were under-resourced. They didn’t have the skills for their assigned tasks, and deadlines were too short. Team members had never told her this because they were afraid she’d be upset or disappointed.
But rather than offering the typical, reactive response, “You should come to me. You should tell me,” she tried empathy instead. “I’m so sorry that you felt like you couldn’t tell me the truth, and I’m so sorry that I wasn’t more attuned to your struggles for resources. That must’ve been really hard.”
It took some work, but Evelyn showed that she had the qualities of an effective leader. Throughout the meeting, employees got an opportunity to talk about their own feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty, and their own fears. They finally felt heard. As a result, they were that much more willing to listen. And, soon enough, act.