I recently read an article entitled “Could You Recognize a Great Leader if He or She Were Right In Front of You?” by Cohn and Moran. They identify seven attributes to look for when selecting someone for a leadership position: integrity, empathy, emotional intelligence, vision, judgment, courage and passion. Great attributes for sure and ones we all should aspire to. However, many people believe that these are attributes you are born with and if you weren’t born with them there’s no hope for you as a leader. Is that really true?

When I facilitate Leadership Workshops I start by asking the attendees to think of someone they consider an effective leader, living or dead, and then to write down three personal attributes that caused them to select that person. Then we compare their lists. Sometimes there is one or two attributes that are duplicates, even capturing some of Cohn and Moran’s, but never have they all aligned. When they share the names of the leaders they were thinking of the answers are even more diverse: from Abraham Lincoln to Mother Theresa, to my Dad, Helen Keller to General Patton, to my 6th grade science teacher. All were or are leaders in their own right. How can they all be leaders if they don’t possess “those” seven attributes? It also begs the question, how do you coach or mentor someone to become a leader when there are so many different leadership attributes?

Let me suggest that you first need to change your leadership paradigm. Leaders are made, not born. Although the identified leaders came from all walks of life, all sorts of backgrounds and family heritages, their common denominator is that they achieved the results they were aiming for. Yes, there are some folks born with inherent leadership qualities but most of us gain leadership characteristics through experience and development processes. The definition of a Leader is really simple, it’s someone who sets goals and then achieves them. And before you can lead others, you need to first be a self-leader, a goal-setter.

Management guru Peter Drucker puts it this way. “Leadership is all about results!”
Are you ready to think about leadership in terms of results instead of attributes?
Are you ready to use a results—based model of leadership to increase your organization’s efficiency and effectiveness, but don’t have the Leadership development processes in place in order to achieve the results you desire?

Regardless of what your business manufactures or what services it provides, Firm Foundations has the experience and the customized processes for measuring current performance, planning in an uncertain environment, and preparing your management and staff for sustainable, performance excellence. We have helped large and small organizations achieve and sustain the highest levels of performance in the areas of:

• Customer satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty
• Product and service outcomes, and process efficiency
• Workforce satisfaction and engagement
• Revenue and market share expansion
• Social responsibility

In a no obligation visit we can mutually determine whether or not it makes sense to work together. Give us a call!