The Top Eight

There are eight keys to leadership greatness. So says the National Institute of Business Management. We see these lists often, usually showing consensus on fundamental leadership tenets.

Let’s take a look at NIBM’s:

1. Maintain Absolute Integrity. Argument goes, you cannot maintain 90 percent integrity with a little room for tip-toeing and tap dancing. 100 percent or bust.

2. Know Your Stuff. You may not be the smartest person in the room but you should be the strongest advocate and the best informed.

3. Declare Your Vision. Can you state your company’s mission in a declarative sentence? Does it define how you make money?

4. Show Uncommon Commitment. Do you live and breathe your product’s success? Are you personally smarter, faster, and more creative than the competition?

5. Expect Positive Results. Every situation presents an opportunity. But do we practice it?

6. Take Care of Your People. Those who earn your trust, those who get it done for you, those who question with good intention, and those who fight your fight even in tough times should earn your praise, your loyalty, and your money.

7. Duty Before Self. Put the company and its best interests first and the payoff will come back to you and your colleagues.

8. Stand Out in Front. If you haven’t been on the front lines you can’t inspire those who are there now. Be a visible, involved player.

To this list add:

Better Leader = Better Life.

I love Wharton Business School professor Stewart Friedman’s thoughts on how being a better leader leads to a more fulfilling life. His article in the Harvard Business Review summarizes his Total Leadership approach, i.e., achieve leadership in all four “domains”: work, home, community, and self. Creatively enhancing performance, acting in ways more consistent with values (remember Bill George’s True North?), and leading others to integrate their lives all help to achieve the goal of being a better leader and a richer person.

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Comments

[Joy]

I may work for a non-profit, but as I read the eight keys to leadership, I realize that they fit the Director of HIRED very well. She works harder than anyone and knows her stuff. She is not my direct boss, who also is great, but she does inspire me to do my best.

[Barbara McCarthy]

Actually these eight principles are adapted from "The Stuff of Heros: The Eight Universal Laws of Leadership" by William Cohen, professor of leadership at California State University.

[loose]

Thank you Barbara. I should have looked further into the source of the list from the National Institute of Business Management. Attribution, always attribution!!