Leadership: I’ve
worked for great leaders and I’ve worked for some pretty bad leaders, what I’ve
come to learn is there are several common characteristics of good leaders. They are:
1)
Problem Solvers – Great leaders are good problem
solvers, this means they gather and use data to find the root cause of
problems. They develop a hypothesis on
an approach to solve a problem and then collect data to either prove or
disprove the hypothesis; they involve their team and solicit data and
opinion. They search for others that
faced a similar problem and they study alternative solutions. They don’t assume anything about the problem,
not the source of the problem, not the solution. They are thoughtful and disciplined.
2)
Empowering – Great leaders empower and instill confidence
both within their organization and outside their organization. They give their teams the tools they need to
do their jobs and hold them accountable.
They also assume responsibility if their team does not achieve the
intended goals, they don’t blame mistakes or failure on others in their team or
on extenuating circumstance.
3)
Collaborative – Great leaders surround
themselves with people that can challenge their thoughts. They consult others regularly for their
opinion. They roll up their sleeves and
join in the problem solving, while not necessarily solving the problem on their
own.
4)
Communicative – Great leaders can communicate
the vision and direction for the organization.
They justify and inform the team and outsiders for their direction, actions
and end goals.
5)
Humility – Great leaders rarely take credit for
the success of the team. They are quick
to acknowledge the contributions of other individuals and the team.
6)
Honesty – Great leaders are honest and their
integrity is unquestionable. They will
not compromise integrity or follow questionable practices to achieve the end
goal. They will find the right way to
approach the solution and be successful without betraying their integrity. They maintain themselves beyond reproach.
As most of you know, I was not happy with the outcome of the
election last November, but for the most part, I’ve stayed fairly quiet. I must say, I want Trump to be successful; I
want America to be a better place to live and work at the end of his term in
office than on the day he took office. I
don’t want President Trump to fail, for if he fails we are all worse off.
However, I am not too hopeful given what I have observed both
in the run up to President Trump assuming the Presidency and in the first several
days of his Presidency. To me he hasn’t shown the key factors I find to define
great leadership.
Let’s take it from the top:
1)
Problem Solving – President Trump has a lot of
problems to solve, just listen to his inaugural address. We can agree or disagree with his list of
problems, that is politics, but that’s not my issue at this point (more on that
in subsequent posts). Trump does not
appear to be intellectually curious. By
that I mean he doesn’t appear to solicit other’s opinions that may differ from
his and try to understand a different approach to the problem. He doesn’t appear to look for data that will
either support or refute his assumptions either about the problem itself or the
proposed solution. He doesn’t appear to
think through his actions and potential implications. His approach to problem solving does not
appear to be thoughtful nor disciplined.
2)
Empowering – I don’t know the inner workings of
his team, but it doesn’t appear that he is very empowering to his team. He appears to be the type of leader that
doesn’t encourage debate or dissension; it seems he only wants “yes-men”. He also does not instill confidence through
his actions in the people outside of his immediate sphere, including the
American people.
3)
Collaborative – Again, this is hard to assess
since I’m not able to see how he interacts with his team behind closed
doors. However it is hard to imagine
that he fosters an open debate among his team given how openly hostile he is to
any outside criticism.
4)
Communicative – President Trump is a total
failure in this area. He seems to only
communicate via 140 character half thoughts via Twitter. Good leaders articulate a vision and explain
the data behind their decision making process.
They also explain how the reached their solution, other solutions
considered and how their solution is the best course of action to solve a
specific problem and potential effects and fallout of pursuing that course of
action. If he would focus on this more,
and empower both his press secretary and his staff to communicate the same
message effectively would dramatically improve his standing and limit
criticism. Great leaders have very good communications teams.
5)
Humility – President Trump gets and absolute
zero in this regard. Time after time he
has shown that he deserves all the credit for anything potentially positive and
everyone else is to blame for anything negative. It seems that this is just a core trait that
he doesn’t possess.
6)
Honesty – This is another trait that Trump
appears to lack. He may or may not be
capable of being honest, I don’t know.
But it is something he must work on.
Without honesty each and every decision will be tainted and
questioned. He never appears to tell the
entire story. Honesty would serve him
well in overcoming many of his critics.
The first week of this presidency has been an unmitigated
disaster. Never in history has there
been so many people openly protesting his presidential actions in the first week
of a Presidency. We probably haven’t
seen protests on this scale since the Vietnam War.
