I was watching a presentation recently where the speaker highlighted the leadership crisis we face in the world today, and the huge disparity that exists between how effective our leaders think they are, vs how effective their employees think they are.
This got me thinking a lot about leadership, and what it takes to be a great leader. Leadership seems to come in many different forms. Is it simply a combination of the right person, with a certain set of skills, at the right time, with the right group? Or is there is common set of characteristics that define great leaders, regardless of the environments they are in?
With my curiosity peaked, I decided to simply ask the question. I created a quick survey with only 2 questions: 1. What is your personal definition of leadership?, and 2. what are the characteristics that you feel make a great leader?
I shared the survey on my social media platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram) over a 3-week period, and I was very happy to end up with 55 responses. I specifically chose to have only open-ended questions so as not to lead the respondents in any way, and also to allow for an unlimited response length.
Question 2 was of most interest to me, and as you can imagine each person listed around 5-6 different characteristics of what they felt made a great leader. In the end, I had a list of over 130 unique characteristics, which in itself I think paints a picture as to how complex and nuanced leadership can be! But the more I tallied them up, the more I began to see a few stand out, and one in particular, which ended up being the out and out winner.
In the end, nearly 1/3 of the respondents cited this as a key characteristic of a great leader, and it was…the ability to be a good listener.
I was somewhat surprised to be honest, but really excited and fascinated by this, purely because I think it defies what many feel leadership is primarily about, and how many people currently lead.
I think traditionally, leadership is seen as the time when we need to ‘find our voice’ as it were. It is the role that requires us to now ‘ bark orders’ and ‘command our troops’, to speak up and be heard, to delegate, communicate strategy, to make speeches and motivate others, and to make decisions and have the final word. We have a visual image of leaders up front, commanding an audience and driving their team towards success.
While we know that being a good communicator is indeed an important part of leadership, I wonder how much importance is placed on the ability to do the opposite, and to actually listen? To listen to the suggestions or recommendations of others, or to the deeper concerns that are often being ‘silently’ voiced. To take the time to rather ask good questions and listen to responses. To allow space to draw on the collective experience of the group through debate and co-creation, rather than to just dictate a solution. To not feel like they always need to have the answer, and to simply allow others to feel heard and be acknowledged. What this survey reveals, is that this is indeed more of a valued skill then we might believe.
Now I acknowledge that a survey is only ever a snapshot of opinion at a point in time from a certain group of people, and that there may always be an inherent degree of subjectivity or bias present; but I do believe that the ability to be a good listener is certainly an undervalued characteristic amongst many leaders. Together with some of the others mentioned above, it may in fact be the key ingredient in balancing and enhancing the overall effectiveness of a leader, and ultimately turning them into the great leaders we all wish them to be.