By some well-accepted standards, there are 29 measurable traits that are all useful in understanding your tendencies and can help address your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Improving your personal performance amounts to addressing the qualities that are most out of alignment with the kind of behavioral habits that would best serve whatever kind of leader you need to be.<\/p>\n
While there is strong evidence that certain tendencies are more effective than others \u2013 there is no \u201cone-size-fits-all\u201d solution to the challenges people face in learning to lead effectively. Some things are the result of how you are hard-wired to feel about things, some things are limitations of your thinking \u2013 and some aspects are purely situational \u2013 and are beyond your direct control.<\/p>\n
Regardless of how effective or not you are today, there are three qualities that are not all that hard to identify \u2013 that serve as the foundation for building your capacity to develop your potential. They are not ingredients for some kind of secret sauce., and amlone they will not make you a great leader.\u00a0\u00a0But without them \u2013 you will have a tough time being any kind of effective leader at all. And working on these tendencies, if nothing else, will make you a better person.<\/p>\n
To have a positive influence the three traits you must exhibit are:<\/p>\n
The problem this being so simple \u2013 is that the nuances of each trait require that you understand \u201chow\u201d to embody or \u201cbe\u201d these qualities \u2013 not simply do them.<\/p>\n
To have the skills required to be a good leader \u2013 it is not sufficient to simply be able to relate to how others feel. You must relate in ways that enable you to be a positive influence.<\/p>\n
Cognitive empathy<\/strong> is the most basic skill. It simply requires that you can understand someone else\u2019s feelings and be able to explain them. Most people learn this fairly easily. You state what you observe \u2013 without providing any judgement \u2013 or advice. It is literally learning how to think about what others are feeling, and then communicate those thoughts. A common example would be telling your co-worker, \u201cYou seem pretty angry right now, so I think we\u2019ll discuss our options another time.\u201d The downside of cognitive empathy is that it can be faked and used to manipulate people when they are emotionally vulnerable.<\/p>\n Emotional empathy<\/strong> is when you have feeling that are triggered by, and align with what others are feeling. This is President Bill Clinton\u2019s reaching out to the public and sharing, \u201cI feel your pain.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0It is different than, \u201cI know that you are hurting.\u201d Emotional empathy can be intensely bonding, which is why people who share in a tragedy often become close to one another \u2013 even intimately so. The downside is that you can become emotionally overwhelmed and actually become unavailable to the other person \u2013 or even escalate their own emotional surge \u2013 be it distress or excitement. People who become too emotional themselves risk becoming helpless.<\/p>\n The third order is Compassionate Empathy<\/strong>. This suggests that you are emotionally available, receptive and resourceful to others. There is a cognitive component to how you care about others by being expressive, rational and positive.\u00a0\u00a0The most effective leaders demonstrate compassionate empathy.<\/p>\n Candor<\/strong> rides on top of empathy. It is the ability to speak honestly about what you experience and how you feel. Candor without empathy is can be careless and self-serving, and not in the best interest of effective positive leadership. Careless candor can be obnoxious, ego-driven, mean-spirited and manipulative. But when you balance compassionate empathy with truthful observations \u2013 the resulting influence is powerful and positive.<\/p>\n Humility is essential in all human endeavors because we are all human.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Intellectual humility<\/strong> is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence. We all tend to get things wrong from time-to-time, and even when you do get them right \u2013 you often find someone else can do whatever you do better than you can. Humility doesn\u2019t just make us accept our faults and failures, it forces us to remain curious. There is a certain degree of vulnerability in accepting what we do not know. Without it, you are likely to remain stubbornly attached to your opinions, beliefs and perhaps even your delusions.<\/p>\n This is why curiosity<\/strong> is the key to superior leadership. Your strength as a leader is tied to the questions you ask. The best solutions to any problems are always the result of asking better questions.<\/p>\n It is difficult \u2013 if not impossible to be fully curious without having a modicum of intellectual humility. And it is impossible to be an effective leader by relying on what you already know \u2013 and being unable to see what you need to learn.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There are many fine points to making yourself in to the kind of leader you might need to be. If you begin by making empathy, candor and humility the foundation of your efforts, you will be able to support the weight of what you will spend the rest of your days joyfully building upon.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By some well-accepted standards, there are 29 measurable traits that are all useful in understanding your tendencies and can help address your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. 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