How to Be a Great Leader

Rachel Salaman: That's Kate Sweetman, who wrote "The Leadership Code." She'll reveal some of the attributes shared by the great leaders she looked at.

Rasmus Hougaard analyzed "The Mind of the Leader" for his book of that title. He'll explain why what happens "in there" has such a big impact on how well someone leads.

Rasmus Hougaard: Leadership starts in the mind. It starts with understanding and leading ourselves. And then we can apply that to our people and our organization.

Rachel Salaman: And with all our guests we'll explore how a leader's character manifests itself through their behavior – to determine the impact of their leadership, for good or bad.

Fred Kiel: There's really two aspects of character: one is what you know to be your character, you know what's inside your heart. But what other people see is not your intentions, they see your behavior.

Rachel Salaman: That's influential business consultant Fred Kiel.

Fred Kiel: So if you think about your character as reflected in how you treat other people – at least your reputation is reflected in that way.

Rachel Salaman: There's lots more to come from Fred, Rasmus, Kate, and a range of other experts, as we unravel these key attributes of leaders. What are the things that make others want to follow them? And how do they use these qualities to lead their organizations to success?

Ashley Goodall: Why on earth would you follow somebody else? That's a weird thing to do! You are taking some part of your destiny and entrusting it to another human being. Why on earth would you do that?

Rachel Salaman: Ashley Goodall is a senior vice president at Cisco, and the author of "Nine Lies About Work." One of those lies is that leadership is even "a thing"! Ashley told me that it's less about what leaders do, and more about who they are, that inspires others to follow them.

Ashley Goodall: We hook onto people who give us a little bit more confidence in the future. And what we hook onto about those people is they're really good at something we care about.

It's not that they don't have deficits, we see the deficits, we know that there aren't perfect people. But you're following them because they're really good at something that you care about. That removes a little bit of your doubt about the future, a little bit of your uncertainty, because you know which way they're going to jump.;

Rachel Salaman: So good leaders give us confidence because they care about the work. They make mistakes, but we always know where we stand with them. We can rely on them, however difficult things get. Here's Kate Sweetman again.

Kate Sweetman: In tough economic times, leaders who are calm in a crisis, confident in uncertainty, grounded in fundamental principles, you know, reliable – those rocks that you wish you had – those are the people who are going to make all the difference in the world.

Rachel Salaman: And executive coach Roberta Matuson agrees that you need consistency to keep your people on side.

Roberta Matuson: So, for example, let's just say [that] you are a little prickly – you're a tough boss but you're fair. Well, if you're consistent, people will appreciate that. They won't have to worry, "Well which version of Rachel is showing up today? You know... is it the nice woman, or is it the woman who's going to hold our feet to the fire? Who's showing up?" And so, when you're authentic, people know what you stand for. They're never wondering, "Well what does he really mean?"

Rachel Salaman: Authenticity was a word used by many of the leadership experts I spoke to. For Susan Scott, being open with people is the best way to secure their support.

Susan Scott: History has told us time and time and time again that when an organization or an individual says, "We're struggling with something, and we would really like your input," and discloses completely what's going on, people will circle the wagons and want to help.

Rachel Salaman: I talked to Susan about her book, "Fierce Leadership," where she exposes the dangers of not being honest – and not giving others the chance to help.

Susan Scott: If a problem exists, it exists whether we admit it or not, whether we "cop to it" or not. Karl Jung said, "If a problem is not made conscious, it emerges later as fate." And so, we've got to stop pretending that all's well when it isn't, and put it out there and get input and act on that input.

Frances Frei: The foundation of what's needed for leadership is that we do have to create a foundation of trust.

Rachel Salaman: That's Frances Frei from Harvard Business School.

Frances Frei: You are more likely to trust me if you believe it's the real me speaking to you. And, of course, the opposite of that is true: if you doubt that I believe what I'm saying, you're going to question my authenticity – and the first thing to go is trust.

Rachel Salaman: And for Rasmus Hougaard, authenticity is more important now than ever.

Rasmus Hougaard: The workforce is increasingly younger and younger. They're not interested in a manager that is distant and disconnected. They want a person, they want a real human being that they can relate to, not an authority, not a status, not a role, not a power, they want a human being that they are led by.

Rachel Salaman: And for leadership coach Bruna Martinuzzi, authenticity is about even more than being relatable.

Bruna Martinuzzi: Without authenticity or integrity a leader has no credibility. If a leader's not credible, then people will not believe them, and if they don't believe them, they're not going to believe the message. If they don't believe the message, then they will just go through the motions.

They will do what they're told, but that's not leadership. That's going to be compliance. So the authenticity is key, especially in these times.

Frances Frei: What if my authentic self isn't great?

Rachel Salaman: Frances Frei again.

Frances Frei: So, first of all, if it really isn't great, I'm just not sure you should be leading! Having said that, what if there are aspects of my authentic self that aren't great? Because that's probably more likely.

And I think it's totally fine – in fact it's probably good – to trim the amount of authenticity that you bring to the table. And this is for people who are already authentic. This isn't for people that are just trying to become authentic. I don't want them to start trimming. I want them to experience being "all in".

But if you're like… your whole authenticity isn't a problem for your showing up but, wow, we just don't need to see that final 20 percent. I think it's a totally reasonable thing to do, to keep that 20 percent at home. It won't be inauthentic.

Rachel Salaman: For Sen Sendjaya, from Monash University in Australia, authenticity is bound up with another key characteristic of great leaders: humility.

Sen Sendjaya: Humility is essentially the willingness to see ourselves accurately. So it's not being inferior but it's also not being superior. We actually understand what are our strengths and weaknesses. And being able to operate out of that full awareness of who we are, that's being humble.

And also, another strength of humility is to be able to identify and affirm followers' strengths and talents, rather than feeling threatened by their superior intelligence and talents.

Rachel Salaman: And Rasmus Hougaard told me about the perils of letting your ego get in the way.

Rasmus Hougaard: Research has found that if you, as a leader, have a strong ego and bring that into your leadership, first of all you are very vulnerable to criticism, because an ego means you're very attached to certain perceptions of yourself, meaning if somebody else challenges those, you're very vulnerable.

You're also very vulnerable for manipulation. Research has also found that ego is making us very narrow-minded. We are only wanting to see anything that confirms the observations that support our ego.

Then finally, when we have a strong sense of ego, we end up in what is called a CEO bubble – basically, where we don't know what's going on around us because we're so preoccupied with ourselves, and we don't understand our people and we don't understand our culture. So ego is a real problem in leadership.

Rachel Salaman: So how do you break through that bubble, and really get to know your people and the culture you're working in? The best-selling author of "Leading With Gratitude," Adrian Gostick, gave me some practical advice.

Adrian Gostick: One of the things we found in our research is those managers that had the highest performance spend anywhere up to 75 percent of their days walking around, being with their people, helping them.

And one of the first questions they ask is, "What can I help you with? And what do you want to talk about?" Instead of coming to them saying, "Hey, did you get that report out that I asked for?" No, it's, "What are you working on and what can I help with?" And it just changes the thinking.

Rachel Salaman: Adrian put this into context for me, with an example from his work with a big hotel chain.

Adrian Gostick: The senior executives, at least once a year, were required to spend a full day working in a job that was interacting with clients. And so one of them was telling me about... He said, "I spent a day working with our housekeeping people. You punch in early in the morning, you leave your phone in the locker, you put on the uniform and up you go and you start cleaning rooms. It was an amazingly hard job." And he says, "I saw what my folks were dealing with." He says, "So I developed empathy for what they were working with – and immediately I wanted to give them ideas about how they could make their jobs better."

Mark Brouker: You're conveying that, "I value what you have to say." It's extremely powerful.

Rachel Salaman: That's Mark Brouker, who commanded one of the biggest naval hospitals in the world, and who knows the importance of connecting with those you lead. He told me that all leaders are inherently intimidating because they have power – but there are plenty of ways to put people at their ease.

Mark Brouker: You have to be proactive to get to that approachable level, otherwise you're just going to default to intimidation. And intimidation creates fear, and there's either a culture of trust or a culture of fear.

Every interaction you have – whether it's a text or an email or a passing in the hallway or a Zoom call – how you react will create either a little bit more trust or create a little bit more fear. And when leaders embrace that, they're more likely to be cognizant of it and act appropriately and actually push it towards a level of trust.

Rachel Salaman: Mark Brouker is careful to give people the time they need to talk to him. And Bruna Martinuzzi also helped me understand how great leaders listen.

Bruna Martinuzzi: First of all, just develop your ability to listen to people, and truly listen to people. That's listen with your ears, your eyes, your heart; trying to understand what people are saying and the contextual aspects, not just the words. And second, don't interrupt people. Don't dismiss their concerns offhand, don't rush to give them advice, don't change the subject. Just allow people their moment.

Rachel Salaman: For Bruna, effective listening is the way to unlock empathy.

Bruna Martinuzzi: It's being aware of other people's feelings and needs and concerns. It's a key competency, if you want, or quality: the capacity to intellectually and emotionally identify with others. And it's truly what distinguishes great leaders from everyone else.

We're always so focused on ourselves. Are we making a good impression? Are we saying the right things and so on? But if you just put that brake on, and just let it be about them.

Rachel Salaman: Mind Tools blogger Bruna Martinuzzi. Rasmus Hougaard also helps leaders to develop empathy. He told me it sparks compassion, which is vital for creating strong connections and supporting people to succeed – but only if it's used intelligently.

Rasmus Hougaard: Wise compassion is something that is incredibly important. I think all human beings – at least most of us–have a strong orientation towards compassion. But in this desire to do good, and being good, there is the risk of doing disservice to the people we are leading.

As an example, you are the leader of a team. One person in this team is doing things that are detrimental. And you may think, if you're just purely bringing compassion into it, that you don't want to tell this person because it's going to hurt his or her feelings, and therefore not be nice. But that is completely misunderstood compassion. Compassion has to be paired with wisdom or professionalism, wise judgment and discernment.

So in this case of a team member that is bringing bad vibes into the group, it is a real service to this person, as hard and as tough as [it] can be, to give and to receive that feedback, to give that – otherwise that person is not going to be able to improve, and therefore stay in the job.

Adrian Gostick: It's not just about, "Hey, thanks everybody. Thank you, thank you, thank you." Which is meaningless, unless you know specifically what I've done.

Rachel Salaman: Adrian Gostick again.

Adrian Gostick: And so really the foundation, what we're seeing with appreciation that's being handled in an effective way, is that managers are being trained to actually see value that's being created.

The "thank you" is important, but what's more important to me, especially [with] these younger workers that are coming in, is that my manager is noticing the challenges that I'm facing and is noticing this unique value that I'm bringing.

Rachel Salaman: Susan Scott has a nice phrase for this: "holding people able." When you're properly connected with your people, you can support them – and still have the highest expectations for their success. But they have to have just as much belief in you.

Susan Scott: The way to do it is to model accountability and hold people able. And you know, so often leaders hold other people accountable and then don't behave that way themselves. They are always pointing the finger. We are attracted to somebody who just says, "I blew it, I made a mistake and here's what I'm doing to overcome that or to correct that."

Sen Sendjaya: Accountability is often misunderstood.

Rachel Salaman: That's Sen Sendjaya again – with advice for leaders about limits.

Sen Sendjaya: It does not mean we provide total access and full authority for everyone to probe into the leaders' lives, professionally and personally. But accountability, as far as I understand it, is about opening one's life to a few carefully selected, trusted, loyal confidantes who speak the truth. And I think accountability requires vulnerability – you just have to be willing to be open, and only leaders who have a secure sense of self are willing to do that.

Rachel Salaman: And Justin Menkes gave me more reasons why it pays leaders to be this "open".

Justin Menkes: Never has it been more important to help a workforce understand why your organization is trying to do what it's trying to do, beyond just a paycheck, that you have to have a meaningful purpose to what you're trying to do.

Rachel Salaman: Justin works with top business leaders, and I spoke to him about his book, "Better Under Pressure: How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Themselves and Others."

Justin Menkes: Every company – model company – that's thriving today has meaningful purpose, and here [at] Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher built an airline where the bag agents don't believe that the bag they're putting on the plane is just another suitcase, they believe it's somebody's insulin.

Or somebody getting on an airplane that they're trying to help, it's not customer 183 that you're trying to get the load up, it's a grandmother trying to get to their grandson's first birthday. So they're keeping costs affordable so that they can help people do that. Creating a company that people see why what they're doing matters, that's a universal human value.

Rachel Salaman: So Justin Menkes wants leaders to inspire belief, and give their people hope. And a common theme among all our guests was the need to lead with large amounts of optimism. Here's Bruna Martinuzzi.

Bruna Martinuzzi: Even when the news is not good, the leader needs to remain optimistic, and translate that attitude to the people. I think it was Martin Luther King who said, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." So, the leader's role is crucial in times like this, so that they continue to instill that hope in people, so that's the first thing.

Rachel Salaman: But Mark Brouker told me that it's no good being a "pollyanna" and sugar-coating problems.

Mark Brouker: I gave a talk once at the Bethesda in Washington, D.C., in the big naval hospital there, and someone said, "Well, I'm here at the hospital and parking here is a mess. You can't find a parking spot. It's just a terrible mess. And... how do you put a smile on your face on that? And I said, "Well, here's what I would say, is, 'Welcome on board the naval hospital Bethesda. We have a great team here; we work with the army; the president comes here; the congressmen and women come here. The bad news is – parking's terrible! You're going to have to get here early, put on a good pair of shoes and get an umbrella, and just get here early and call it some... a little physical fitness for you." But that's it. So, address the elephant in the room, but don't let it hijack and take over the conversation because, at the end of the day, you've got to give people hope that their efforts are worth the effort.

Rachel Salaman: Mark Brouker. Frances Frei agrees that people will have belief when they understand your logic: the clearsighted view that's guiding you through whatever challenges you face.

Frances Frei: You're more likely to trust me if you get a sense, a real sense, of the rigor of my logic. And you're more likely to trust me if you get a sense that I am really in it for you and for the broader group. So authenticity, logic and empathy – it's the real me, with rigorous logic, and I'm in it for you.

Rachel Salaman: It's noticeable that our experts don't expect leaders to be the finished article. Quite the opposite, in fact. Great leaders show that they're always learning, reassessing situations, readying themselves to cope with whatever comes next.

Justin Menkes: With today's world. the puzzle never gets figured out. The puzzle is ever-changing, so one must find invigoration in an ever-changing puzzle.

Rachel Salaman: Justin Menkes again.

Justin Menkes: So finding order in chaos is talking about how strategy is ever-changing, so you have to find gratification in that curiosity.

Rachel Salaman: And curiosity was one of the leadership traits that Fred Kiel highlighted to me.

Fred Kiel: The world is big and complex and, at some point, you begin to become aware that there's more that I don't know, than that I do know. And you become very cautious about coming to quick conclusions about things.

Kate Sweetman: You've just got to really stay curious, so as much as – it's a bit paradoxical – as much as you really need to develop a point of view around the future, you also need to stay open to other information always coming in, to make sure that you're not being dogmatic.

Rachel Salaman: Kate Sweetman, another advocate of curiosity: always actively looking for new ideas – and new perspectives.

Kate Sweetman: You really need to invite other people into the process. So that includes external people like customers. You also need to engage the organization. The more that we're engaged in knowledge work, the more that we're engaged in a service economy, the more that it's the people who are scattered throughout the organization, that's going to have a lot of really important information that's going to help to shape the strategy.

Rachel Salaman: When it comes to shaping ourselves as leaders, Roberta Matuson advises us to take small steps.

Roberta Matuson: I'm a huge advocate of moving one or two things forward a mile, rather than seven things forward an inch.

So, I would take the one or two things that I'm pretty darned good at, that I could be really, really great at, and I would start there. And I would get myself up to the great level and then after I'd mastered that, then I'd go back and say, "OK, what are the next two things I want to work on?"

Rachel Salaman: And Justin Menkes told me that all the characteristics of great leaders can be learned – if we find manageable ways to practice them.

Justin Menkes: So what we have to understand is [that] there is a beginning point – skills that we can start to develop. Things like finding order in chaos, right. All of this is about preparation and we have to prepare. Because the world is not going to get simpler and it's not going to get less pressured. We're built to achieve. As long as we're prepared for it, we can actually enjoy it.

Rachel Salaman: So, according to our Expert Interview guests, great leadership is something that we can all learn – if we're really interested in growing, and committed to developing the key attributes, one by one.

We need to show our capability, and our consistency, to inspire people's confidence in us. We need to build trust by being open, honest and authentic. Being humble will help us see the difficulties our people face, and how to support them. And we can hold people accountable, as well as helping them to thrive.

The best leaders model traits like empathy and compassion, as they work on strengthening themselves, their people, and their organizations as a whole.

Fred Kiel: Give up the bad idea that the most effective leader is a hard-nosed driver. The most effective leader is the one who holds people very accountable and is very driven to produce results, but does it in a way that is respectful and caring and forgiving. And then own up to your own mistakes, that's a huge one. Because most senior leaders feel it's a sign of weakness – it's a sign of tremendous strength.

Kate Sweetman: Investing in yourself is really about doing what you need to do, for yourself, to bring your best self forward – and you have to do that every day. And I think that has got to be the hardest part about being a leader.

Rasmus Hougaard: What we mean by "leading ourselves" is that the foundation of leading others is really, first of all, understanding ourselves. Because only when we really understand ourselves, understand our mind, understand our personality and values, are we able to lead ourselves effectively. And only when we can understand and lead ourselves effectively can we lead and understand our people effectively. And only when we do that [can we] actually lead our organization.

Rachel Salaman: Fred Kiel, Kate Sweetman and Rasmus Hougaard ending this episode of Mind Tools Expert Voices: "How to Be a Great Leader."

Leadership is a big topic, and it impacts all of us, whatever our formal role or our career aspirations. We've got in-depth interviews with all the people you've heard here, plus hundreds more, in our Expert Interviews collection – each with downloadable audio and a full transcript.

I'll be back soon with another episode of Expert Voices. For now, I'm Rachel Salaman: thanks for listening.