🔒Leadership lessons from high-performing leaders

Many books and articles have been written about our never-ending quest to be a “world-class” leader.

My firm — The Catalyst Consulting Group — recently interviewed more than 500 high-performing senior executives across a range of industries to try and identify the attributes that separate the leaders who walk on water from those who are underwater.

Here are the top 10 most important attributes for outstanding leadership:

Leaders cannot save their company to prosperity. Anyone with an eighth-grade education can improve the financial performance of their organization by cutting costs. In downturns, the highest-performing leaders use cost-cutting to stabilize their business and then quickly focus on implementing a targeted growth strategy to increase the top line.

Good leadership does not equal being liked.  Many executives interviewed believe there has been a considerable dummying down of senior leadership over the last five years. Too many leaders are afraid of making tough decisions for fear of alienating colleagues, and open up their flanks to attack at a later date.

High emotional intelligence = engagement. Executive effectiveness is constrained by a leader's ability to read situations, properly discern other people's feelings and understand verbal/non-verbal cues. In addition, leaders must understand how they are being perceived and how to influence different stakeholder groups.

Think strategically, but have good executional skills. The leaders of tomorrow must have the ability to think conceptually and strategically in understanding very complex business challenges. Leaders must become facile with data analysis to fully understand their markets, competitors and customers, identify unmet needs, and then be able to align their business model and growth engines.

Too much collaboration equals abrogation. Business is not a democracy, nor does it have to be a dictatorship. The highest-performing leaders are not afraid to make unilateral decisions. The voice in their head is most likely the reason they are sitting in the corner executive seat. If a leader does not listen to this and exercise his or her 51 percent vote, that leader is the one most likely to not have a seat when the music stops.

Effective leaders understand performance drivers. Many leaders lack a clear understanding of the cause and effect that drives organizational performance. If a leader understands the drivers of business performance, then that leader can develop leading metrics that can predict business results.

Attract, develop and promote staff based on impact, not ancillary factors. Most organizations today spend a considerable amount of time communicating the importance of talent management, but all too often key positions are staffed with a bunch of “empty suits.” Look at the organization charts of many companies and one cannot help but see similarities in the dominant coalition. A disproportionate number of the executives:

• Have identical company pedigrees (for example, all GE or Pepsi folks);

• Have similar educational criteria (all third-generation Ivy leaguers);

• Have very similar socio-demographic characteristics;

• Are promoted based on developing a tight relationship with a sponsor and not through achieving results.

“A-players” only want to report to and work with other A-players. The highest-performing leaders set aggressive goals, hold staff accountable for results and get rid of the bottom feeders. A-players will not accept reporting to “C players” long term. They will get very frustrated and reduce their effort or leave.

Don't play the game not to lose — be a calculated risk taker. In football when a team is ahead in points and it's the waning minutes of the game, they often use a “prevent-defense” strategy to make it hard for the other team to score. The same analogy holds for business. History is replete with examples of leaders who played the game of business not with an eye toward winning, but not to lose. 

Establish and manage your culture. The best leaders have realized that culture is malleable and can be changed over time, and an organization's culture must be closely aligned with its business strategy. 

Ronald Recardo is the managing partner of The Catalyst Consulting Group LLC, a Shelton-based business advisory firm.