Jim Collins, US academic and author of the book Good to Great, put together a team of business students to identify the best-performing listed American companies between 1975 and 2000. He set out to discover why companies like Kimberly Clark and Phillip Morris were such great performers. One area he focused on was leadership.
He found that in general, top-performing CEOs were not rock stars but honest, down-to-earth types who had come up through the business over a long period of time. He also found that great leaders employ great people to work with them. They are big questioners. Using what is known as the Socratic method, they ask questions rather than presuming they know the answers. In so doing, they arrive at a better understanding of problems and this results in better answers or solutions.
However, while they encourage healthy and even aggressive debates to encourage broad thinking, they eventually arrive at a decision and expect their teams to fall in line. There also seems to be a common commitment to articulating and identifying a simple plan for building a great company.
Over time, extensive leadership literature has outlined the top qualities that business leaders must have to be great:
1. Motivational skills
A great leader should be able to command a room and inspire a team to perform at their best.
2. Ability to take risks
A great leader has an entrepreneurial spirit and is not afraid to take risks to advance the business and improve revenues.
3. Ability to take the initiative
Initiative is important in business as it continually pushes people to work harder, learn more, and perform better.
4. Competitive spirit
The desire to do better than the competition can prove vital to your success.
5. Knowledge
Thorough knowledge of the business world, as well as of technology, economics, politics, history, and other matters, is important for business leaders.
6. Solid communication skills
Business leaders must be able to communicate effectively in writing and orally to ensure the highest levels of efficiency.
7. Amiability
Great business leaders have great personalities. Their colleagues and subordinates like them, respect them and enjoy working with them.
8. Ambition
The most successful business leaders have ambition. They have lofty goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them.
9. Reliability
Great business leaders are steadfast. They can be counted on to get the job done and always make a positive contribution.
10. Personal and professional integrity
Successful business people conduct themselves in a respectable manner and always act ethically, fairly and responsibly.
Social intelligence impacts leadership
Research shows that leadership requires social intelligence, a set of interpersonal competencies built on specific neural circuits that inspire others to be effective.
Emotional intelligence occupies a prominent space in the leadership literature and in coaching practices. But in the past few years, according to US psychologists Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis, research in the field of social neuroscience – the study of what happens in the brain while people interact – reveals new truths about what makes a good leader.
The discovery is that certain things leaders do – such as exhibiting empathy and becoming attuned to others’ moods – affect both their own brain chemistry and that of their followers. A more relationship-based construct for assessing leadership is social intelligence, which they define as a set of interpersonal competencies built on specific neural circuits that inspire others to be effective.
Encouraging positive feelings
Goleman and Boyatzis believe that great leaders are those whose behaviour powerfully leverages the system of brain interconnectedness. If they are correct, it follows that a potent way of becoming a better leader is to develop a genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose cooperation and support you need.
Shared experience
Perhaps the most stunning recent discovery in behavioural neuroscience is the identification of mirror neurons in the brain. When we consciously or unconsciously detect someone else’s emotions through their actions, our mirror neurons reproduce those emotions. Collectively, these neurons create an instant sense of shared experience.
Mirror neurons have particular importance in organisations because leaders’ emotions and actions prompt followers to mirror those feelings and deeds. If leaders hope to get the best out of their people, they should continue to be demanding but in ways that foster a positive mood in their teams.
Traditional incentive systems are simply not enough to get the best performance from followers. Goleman and Boyatzis give an example of what works: there’s a subset of mirror neurons whose job is to detect other people’s smiles and laughter, prompting smiles and laughter in return.
A boss who is self-controlled and humourless will rarely engage those neurons in his team members, but a boss who laughs and sets an easygoing tone puts those neurons to work, triggering spontaneous laughter and getting his team to bond in the process. A bonded group is one that performs well. Being in a good mood also helps people take in information effectively and respond nimbly and creatively. In other words, they say, laughter is serious business.
An experiment in potential and possibilities
Is greatness about talent or hard work? A remarkable experiment sets out to prove it’s about deliberate practice.
The Dan Plan, which began in April 2010, is a project in transformation. Through 10 000 hours of ‘deliberate practice’, Dan, a 30-year-old commercial photographer from Oregon in the US with no previous experience as a competitive athlete, plans on becoming a professional golfer. But the plan isn’t about golf: through this process, Dan hopes to prove that it’s never too late to start a new pursuit in life.
The theory behind the plan
Talent has little to do with success. According to research conducted by Dr K Anders Ericsson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, “Elite performers engage in ‘deliberate practice’ – an effortful activity designed to improve target performance.” Dr Ericsson’s studies, made popular through Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers and Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated, have found that in order to excel in a field, roughly 10 000 hours of “stretching yourself beyond what you can currently do” is required.
The story thus far
At last count, Dan had practiced 2 500 hours of golf. Logging in 30-plus hours a week he will hit the 10 000 hour milestone by October 2016. Through his journey Dan hopes to inspire others to start exploring the possibilities life affords them. It’s not easy, but Dan believes that if he inspires even one person to quit their day job and find happiness in their own plan, then the Dan Plan is a success.
To find out more, visit www.thedanplan.com