Qualities and characteristics of successful managers

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In this article, it has been demonstrated that we may have some psychological predispositions that influence the kind of leader/ managers we are, and the styles of people management that we habitually use. However, what is more important is that we are aware of these, because self-awareness is the necessary precursor to personal change, learning and self-improvement. This can also help us to be more sensitive to the kinds of organizational environments where our individual leadership styles will work most effectively. If you are someone who often has the feeling that somehow you don’t ‘fit in’, it may be that you are not being completely honest with yourself about the job, career or dreams that you really want to pursue.

So the starting point for becoming an effective leader/manager of others is true self-awareness, and the ability to understand and reflect on how others see us. The Scottish poet, Robbie Burns, described this simple fact of human existence more than two hundred years ago in this way: ‘If only we could see ourselves as others see us, it would from many a calamity save us.’ Long before Burns’s time, the ancients understood the importance of self-awareness. For example, one of the two axioms carved over the entrance to the temple of the Greek god Apollo at Delphi, on the side of Mount Olympus, is ‘Know Thyself’ (the other being, ‘Nothing Too Much’). Although our ancestors have understood the importance of this for millennia, most people still take years to achieve this and some never achieve true self-awareness. Today, there are a number of techniques that can be used to find out more about ourselves and how others see us. These include 360° feedback, upward performance appraisals by subordinates, psycho-drama, psychological testing procedures administered by suitably accredited chartered psychologists, and utilizing gestalt (event) psychology techniques. Subsequent articles include some of these to help enhance self-awareness and, thereby, our understanding of leadership and people management. Because they are self-aware, effective leaders understand their physical and psychological limits, and are able to cope well with pressure and uncertainty. They have a child-like curiosity and enthusiasm for novelty, learning and change. They do not blame others for their mistakes and they learn from these. They are fairly smart, have some emotional intelligence and are very adaptable.

Great leaders never rest on their laurels. Whatever success they achieve is in fact the main reason why they change, because they know that organizational leadership today is a race without a finishing line. They do not have a fixed, rigid leadership repertoire, and can adapt as circumstances change. They have some knowledge of the art of political statecraft, combined with high ethical standards. They also recognize that leadership, at times, can be a lonely experience and that being respected is more important than being liked. They know that it is impossible to lead in isolation, and they understand how to connect emotionally with their followers. Because they are able to inspire and empower their followers, they do not waste unnecessary time ‘managing’ people in an inefficient command-andcontrol fashion. They are genuinely interested in unleashing the full potential of their employees. As a result, they are not simply taskfocused, and expend a considerable amount of time and energy creating work cultures that enable their staff to run with the ball themselves and perform to the best of their abilities. They are exceptional communicators, because they know that, if people don’t believe the messenger, they won’t believe the message. So they communicate frequently and with credibility, and they listen to their employees, acting as a prism and focal point for their ideas and suggestions. They walk the talk and practise what they preach, and if they make promises to their followers, they deliver on these.

Successful leaders are also risk-taking professionals who are visionary and innovative as well as good planners, educators and team-builders. They are people who may not know everything but who are adept at surrounding themselves with people who know what they don’t. They can see the future, create directions and/or visions for the future and are able to lead their followers down new ways, roads, paths or journeys. In new or fast-growing companies they do not need to rely on formal positional power and are comfortable leading decentralized, opaque and virtual organizations. They are truly internationalist in outlook, and comfortable with cultural and gender diversity in their workplaces. They often have a good sense of humour and don’t take themselves too seriously. They may sometimes be regarded as charismatic but, as we have seen, this is not an essential prerequisite for successful leadership and people management. Last, all the evidence from history, academic research and the practices of real-life leaders show us that the best leaders, throughout history, have been able to do a number of fairly simple things simultaneously, but (and this is the really crucial point) they perform them well and consistently, even in difficult situations or under crisis conditions.

One question remains to be addressed in this opening article. Is there anything new to learn about leadership and people management that our ancestors haven’t already known about for centuries? More than 2300 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested that prospective leaders – having acquired self-awareness and wisdom – needed to develop three additional clusters of competencies: ethos: the ability to convince their followers that they were trustworthy, reliable and fair, pathos: the ability to appeal to their followers’ values, emotions and motivations, and logos: knowledge and expertise. This indicates that the core attributes of effective leaders have been understood for a very long time. Of course, there have been significant changes over the last two hundred years that have influenced the way that leadership and people management are now understood and exercised. These include the impact of industrialization, the emergence of democratic political systems and the decline of the old aristocratic order, the inexorable spread of globalization, the widespread uptake of new technologies, the rapid pace of change in organizations and the impact of the advances that women have made in many different professions and organizations in more recent times. Nevertheless, the ancient leadership attributes described by Aristotle are as relevant today as they have always been.

In addition, as noted in the Preface, becoming a really effective leader/manager requires the development of an eclectic, and evolutionary, personal ‘tool-kit’ that encompasses technical, creative, leadership and people management skills. One example of this kind of leader is David Lilenthal. He rose from humble origins to be an energy adviser to every US president from Roosevelt in the 1930s to Jimmy Carter in the 1970s. He was also the head of the US Atomic Energy Commission for many years, and an early pioneer of interactive communication media. He was often cited by Jerry Levin, former CEO of Time Warner-AOL, as an influential leadership role model. Lilenthal believed that ‘The manager–leader of the future should combine in one personality the robust realistic quality of the man of action, with the insight of the artist, the religious leader, the poet who explains man to himself. The man of action alone or the man of contemplation alone will not be enough; these two qualities together are required’ (cited by Charan, 1998).

In a similar vein, Robert Goizueta (Coca-Cola), Jack Welch (General Electric), Alfred Sloan (General Motors), Sam Walton (Wal-Mart), Bill Marriot (Marriot Hotels), Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (HP), Akio Morita (Sony) and Konosuke Matsushita (Matsushita) are widely regarded as being among the greatest business leaders of the 20th century.9 What qualities and characteristics did they share? They were curious about the world and lifelong learners. They paid attention to their people, realizing that they really were the most important assets that their companies possessed. They all had superb practical business acumen and were tough and pragmatic, but always had one imaginative and visionary eye looking towards the future. They constantly experimented with new business and people management techniques without becoming reactive ‘fad-surfers’. They all led from the front, always led by example and were men of both action and contemplation. They were able to inspire their followers to achieve great things. All, by the standards of their day, operated within clear ethical and moral codes. If we can develop some of these qualities, then we can truly start to make things happen in new and exciting ways. And, as we saw earlier, regardless of any genetic predispositions we may have inherited from our parents, most people can enhance their leadership and people management skills, given self-belief, time, motivation and commitment.