- Leadership selections routinely focus on certain skills, experiences or traits that at least appear, intuitively, to be important.
- Leadership demands qualities of its own: for example, great operators may be excellent deputies, but hardly good leaders
- The best leaders find multiple ways to impact the performance, development, and growth of others
When it comes to leadership, do you know how to set objective criteria? Christian Hasenoehrl provides insight on avoiding the pitfalls of common perception.
Leadership selection through promotion or recruitment, boards and senior executives routinely focus on certain skills, experiences or traits that at least appear, intuitively, to be important. Often they look for team players, operational experts, executives with previous leadership experience, and those who appear eager for greater responsibilities. Most rank leaders on subjective criteria or business criteria that is only tangentially related to leadership talent at best and not in the least predictive of future success in role.
Indeed, many perceived leadership strengths can, in fact, have quite the opposite effect. Great operators may be excellent deputies, but hardly good leaders. Team players may excel in a strong team but be lost at providing direction. Those simply hungry for greater responsibility may not have the first clue how to build relationships and exert influence.
