Notes on leadership

Preston Bottger
In his book The Prince, Italian theorist Niccolo` Machiavelli identified three types of intelligence: the kind where someone understands things for himself – which is excellent to have; the kind where someone understands what others can explain to him – which is good to have; and the kind where someone does not understand for himself, nor through others – which is useless for leadership. Five hundred years and centuries of public education later, I’m not sure this categorisation has changed!
True leaders share a hunger for responsibility. They are able to attract, organise and energise people to fulfill their primary mission, which is wealth creation. They have the stamina and the resilience to cope with harsh criticism. They can see the upside potential and the downside risks of a situation. They are both assertive and responsive to diverse points of view. They can switch from an analytical to a creative, political, pragmatic or idealistic way of thinking, when other people may be stuck with one. Finally, they are willing to invest time and effort, and sometimes sacrifice something – a passion, for example – to pursue their goal.
Is it given or learned? It’s both, of course. But I believe some people are better at it than others.
Child psychologists have identified different characteristics in babies. One of them is pure physical energy. Another is their ability to calm down when they are upset. Research has shown that a baby that has high physical energy is likely to become an adult with high physical energy, and a baby that’s easy to pacify is likely to become a calmer adult. That’s precisely what you need as a leader!
In my classrooms, I see tremendous differences in the ability participants have to diagnose what’s in front of them. Some are a lot more flexible, some a lot more rigid. A true leader is able to look at a situation from different angles, and generate new perspectives. He can step out of past influence, meaning suspend his judgment between what he thinks is good or bad, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, and once he’s understood the situation, he takes a strong position.
A true leader must also be very good at identifying what other people are concerned about, and speak in ways that give the impression that he has answers for them. Charisma helps, of course. It is physically and verbally attractive. It gets people’s attention.
But leadership is not always about cooperation. Let’s face it: sometimes, it’s about competition. A lot of people cannot really take high level of responsibility because they seek affection. They want the world and other people to be perfect. They become bitter in front of reality – because reality is not perfect. That bitterness stops a lot of good people from rising. They think: “Life is too hard, I’m just going to drink beer and watch TV.” Instead, true leaders roll up their sleeves, take responsibility and do what they can to spread enthusiasm while keeping a sense of reality. I call them the “happy warriors,” and I believe we need more of them in our troubled world.

--Maury Peiperl
For me, a good leader is somebody who makes it possible for other people to perform well and to learn. Therefore, I reject the framing that there would be one good leadership profile. There are many possible profiles for a good leader, just as there are many possible profiles for a bad leader. It depends on the goals one wants to accomplish and especially on the situation. For example, a factory leader, a financial manager and a global sales director may not share the same attributes and skills, but may still be good leaders in their respective fields.
In other words, you are not born a good leader, you become one. Most of the behaviours that make a difference in leadership can be learned. Emotional intelligence is the key. This concept includes the ability to understand others people’s motivations and capabilities. Nobody is born with this ability. It requires time, empathy, openness, humility and feedback.
Even the most successful leaders continue to ask themselves: “What do I not know? What do I need to learn?” This makes them better leaders, but also better people – certainly more humble people, which even Western cultures are finally learning matters greatly for credibility and connection. Nobody wants to be led by somebody who thinks they know everything.
It’s true that much of our personalities are genetically inherited – according to some studies, around 60 per cent – much more than people think. But it’s how you develop those natural tendencies, and most importantly how you behave in specific situations, that really matter. We know from research that people pay too much attention to the characteristics of individuals rather than the situations in which they act, tending to blame the person when another person in the same situation would likely have behaved in the same way. This is called in social psychology the “fundamental attribution error.” Was the CEO of BP, for example, the cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? In any immediate way, he was not. People talked a lot about his management style, but only a minority of them traced the problem back to the culture of the company (which long pre-dated his appointment), lax regulation, irresponsible contractors, or even bad luck (not that the result was in any way forgivable!). We miss the opportunity to understand leadership in context (which is always present) when we focus only on individuals.
Some of the best leaders are the people in the middle, who help other people to succeed. They don’t aim primarily at rising to the top – to me, that’s not leadership, that’s just competition. Instead, they aim at forging other leaders. This has very little to do with charisma – quite the contrary, actually. Charisma means people may admire you more, but what they may miss is that your leadership is more about what they do, rather than how much they like you.
How can one work at becoming a better leader? Practising empathy is one way. We sometimes conduct exercises at IMD where we put together two people who don’t really know each other. Each has to find out what motivates the other, and the answer is rarely the same for both. Role models are also important, not only because of their (usually high) status, but because they offer us a shortcut: Instead of having to learn everything by trying it yourself, you can imitate successful “others” and avoid having to make all the same mistakes.
Still, the best way to improve is indeed to fail, to learn, and to try again. If you are humble and resilient enough, that’s the ultimate path to success.