Barack Obama’s recent victory and political campaign got me thinking, what does it take to be a successful leader or manager? More specifically, I wondered about what specific, practical, traits a person needs in order to motivate and change people’s behavior? Afterall, effective communications is all about influencing someone so their behavior matches what you’re trying to get across. Here are some practical traits all good leaders and managers must possess:
Perseverance
Like a reliable Honda or pair of old work boots, you just gotta keep working. Perseverance is about staying focused and not loosing site of a given end goal, it’s also about repeating behavior. So, for example, if you’re trying to launch a new project at work and the organization is telling you it’s not going to work, we’ve never done it before, and our customers won’t “get it”, then repeating the justification or argument for the project (provided the argument/data is sound) will most likely wear the organization down (provided you convince enough stakeholders). Perseverance can be equated to being stubborn, but I think a stubborn person is a bit less analytical and logical.
Energy
Some people have it and others don’t. It’s not about the right diet or 10 hours of sleep, rather it seems to be a genetic thing, like a “Runner’s High”, that allows high achievers to keep going on a project, term paper, or political campaign. High Energy is probably tied to not wanting to fail or possessing a mind that sees beyond the immediate needs of a given project or campaign. Nevertheless, if you can’t keep going beyond the average person’s stamina limit, then the sort of achievement that Obama just realized is most likely beyond your reach.
Self Awareness
The ability to step outside yourself and see how you’re behaving and what you’re saying is a difficult skill set to acquire. In fact, most politicians are very bad at it because, especially during a campaign, they need to stay on message and repeat the same value propositions (that’s why they call it a “campaign”, like a marketing campaign for Wal-Mart with the same music, logo, colors, and call to action). Academics are good at self-awareness, especially in a discipline like Philosophy where following arguments and subtitles in language are so important. Self-Awareness is important because a manager, for example, cannot influence direct reports unless they understand how they are being perceived by the rest of the organization and their subordinates.
Listening
Good communications skills include making eye contact, delivering sound arguments, and speaking clearly, but listening, in my view, is the most important skill set of all. Why? Well, communications is all about persuading an audience or person that a particular position is correct or appealing. However, in most instances where we’re communicating well we are re-adjusting our position or arguments based on how a particular audience is responding. Think about the worst presentation you ever sat through and it’s likely that the presenter just trudged through a prepared Power Point presentation without reading the audience, looking for yawns, excessive movement, or a lack of questions (remember your high school physics teacher?). If the presenter would have just “listened” and reacted s/he could have eliminated some slides, made a joke, or picked up on what, if any, of the content presented to the audience was resonating.
sihdir