Ah the age old question to which there is one right answer and definitely lots of wrong answers! This question popped into my head this week around the topic of leadership. A question that some of my coaching clients have been wrestling with is, “What makes the best leader?” Is there a right and wrong answer to this question?
Some of the questions that arose this week that led to my somewhat weird take on this topic were…What competencies should I be honing? What are the qualities that show up in the best leaders? What are companies looking for in great leaders? If I don’t possess those particular skills can I learn them? Should I be spending my time assessing my weaknesses and working to improve these?
My first question back to these leaders is “What kind of a leader do you think you are? And then…”Is that the kind of leader you want to be?”
I don’t know about you but I have encountered all sorts of amazing leaders throughout my career…the thing I have noticed most about these leaders is that they have very different skill sets and they are not perfect!!!! They are really great at some things and not so great at others…what makes them truly inspiring is that they know this about themselves and are willing to be transparent and share their strengths and weaknesses with their team. They also are humble enough to surround themselves with people who are more talented than themselves thus creating stellar teams.
I’m not sure that great leadership is about developing a prescribed set of ‘desired’ skills…the leaders that I most admire are the ones that are genuinely interested in having an impact in their chosen field, and in the world in general. They are visionary about where they want to go and have the ability to get people excited about following that vision, and they consistently demonstrate that they genuinely care about the people around them.
So…sometimes my butt does look big in these and that’s just the way it is! Would love to hear other perspectives!
