4 What Are Leader Attributes?

Mark hadn’t liked serving under his organization’s prior leader. Mark could see that the leader had been reasonably effective. Mark knew why the organization’s board trusted the leader with keeping the organization on track. But for Mark, and for at least a few of his closer acquaintances within the organization with whom Mark had spoken privately, the leader had been hard to read. Because of the leader’s inscrutability, Mark never knew where he stood, even whether the leader appreciated Mark’s efforts or not. At first, Mark had taken it personally, as if the leader didn’t like him. But gradually, Mark had come to understand that the leader exhibited that quality toward pretty much everyone, except a couple of favorites within the organization. Mark just hoped that the next leader wasn’t so inscrutable. Mark wasn’t especially insecure, but he still needed to know where he stood.

Attributes

An attribute is a quality, characteristic, or personality that an individual exhibits, relevant to the opportunity or challenge at hand. Others who know you would, if asked, likely be able to articulate several attributes that, from their perspective, tend to reveal your personality or character. We all to some degree share common human attributes. We’re pretty much all at least somewhat rational and sociable. You must share attributes to navigate and get along in the world. Yet some of us, and perhaps all of us, have distinct personality or character for one thing or another. Some, for instance, have unusual compassion, sensitivity, or insight, while others have greater discipline, command, and presence. Honesty, courage, ambition, creativity, congeniality, poise, stability, humility, and adaptability are other common positive attributes. Celebrate the positive attributes of your acquaintances, especially those who lead you. 

Negative

We naturally first think of positive attributes, especially in effective leaders. The positive attributes of others can make your own day. Pray for a spouse with many positive attributes, and then hope for gifted leaders with at least a few positive attributes, too. Yet unfortunately, attributes can also be negative. Arrogance, aggressiveness, abrasiveness, cynicism, argumentativeness, resentfulness or rancor, greed, dishonesty, slovenliness or apathy, carelessness, naivete or credulity, indecisiveness, and distractability are all examples of negative attributes that one may especially recognize and rue when exhibited in leaders. Negative leader attributes, regularly unleashed and expressed over a team or organization, can ruin morale and steer an organization off course and into the ditch. Beware your own negative attributes, in choosing to lead and carrying out your leadership. Your ability to hold your negative attributes in check and mitigate their damage when expressed may be a key to your successful leadership. Your ability to recognize negative attributes in others and manage around and through them may likewise promote your leadership.

Neutral

Attributes can also be neutral. We observe some qualities of others that don’t much affect us either way but are nonetheless good to know. As the brief story at the beginning of this chapter illustrated, realizing that a leader, supervisor, co-worker, or other acquaintance is just that way, with a certain quality or characteristic, may help explain things that might otherwise be irritating or misconstrued and thus troublesome. Neutral attributes can, for example, include inscrutability, eccentricity or quirkiness, and coolness or reserve. Neutral attributes can also include physical features like height, build, and hair color or skin tone. Neutral attributes may also include communication styles like accents and drawls, cultural affinities and expressions, and mannerisms. Some neutral attributes, though, may in different situations become a positive or negative leadership attribute. A leader’s capacity and tendency to emote, for instance, could be either encouraging or disruptive, depending on the circumstances. Be aware of your neutral attributes and the neutral attributes of those around you, and how they may come into leadership play. 

Approach

Attributes are significant to the extent that they dictate or influence how we approach situations, with what nature, disposition, or attitude. If whatever attributes you have aren’t influencing your thoughts and actions, then you needn’t worry about them. As already suggested briefly above, you may be able to discern your negative attributes enough to keep them in reasonable check. Yet if you can also discern your positive attributes, honestly without exaggeration, then you may be able to draw from those attributes for the energy and effects your leadership needs. Lean on your strengths, while ameliorating your weaknesses. Indeed, an even better approach than masking your negative attributes may be to identify, adopt, and deploy their positive shadows. Your anger, for instance, too quickly or vehemently expressed to the harm of your team, may have its source in your clarity, conviction, and discerning judgment. You may be suppressing your gifts in ways that turn them into poison. Try reinterpreting your negative attributes into positives, to deploy your full range of positive attributes in your leadership.

Acquisition

We tend to think of attributes as inherent or inborn. Attributes do seem to have their source deep within us, if not in our genetics then ingrained in our character through our developmental years. Character likely has genetic, physiological, family, social, and environmental influences, all at once. Yet don’t make the mistake of assuming that your irreversibly ingrained character will doom your leadership. If character is at least in part developmental, then you may well be able to develop leadership character. You may outright acquire distinct new attitudes, attributes, and characteristics over time. Education, training, and experience may all help. If, though, character is in large part developmental, especially through close contact with family members and mentors through one’s early years, then your best way of developing leadership character may be through modeling the character of leadership mentors. If, for instance, you serve under a gifted leader for any significant period of time, you’ll likely find yourself unconsciously exhibiting the leader’s attitudes and mannerisms, in a first step toward developing similar character. 

Personas

On the other hand, if you find that you lack certain leadership attributes that you want or need, don’t expect to effectively manufacture a false persona through which to artificially display them. We all develop personas or identities, even ones that we swap in and out in different settings. Some modification of behavior and even of attitudes and approaches can certainly prove useful, as we move from one setting or community to another. Yet when we act with too great of a commitment to those personas, and with too little recognition of our true or inner selves, the result can be deleterious to us, our leadership, and others. Projecting, playacting, or manipulating through a persona may fool some of the people some of the time but not all the people all the time. Faking bravado, compassion, decisiveness, or whatever else your leadership position demands from moment to moment can lead to poorly timed and executed actions, destroying your leadership reputation and relationships. Making an actor or caricature out of yourself in your authentic and natural settings can also have serious psychological consequences for you. Be cautious in attempting to imitate or mimic leadership qualities that you know you don’t yet possess. Humility and authenticity can go a long way in protecting a leader who is still developing leadership character.

Discerning

Discerning positive, neutral, and negative character can thus be a key to recognizing your own capacity and limitations for leadership, and pursuing your own leadership character development. Be a little cautious in assigning character to yourself or others. We should rightly hesitate, for instance, to assign negative attributes to others. Sometimes, poor behavior is simply due to bad conditions or a poor day. Yet the more you see the behaviors in another individual on different days and under different conditions, the more you may rightly attribute the behaviors to a disposition, quality, or personality. Knowing the attributes of your leader can go a long way toward understanding the leader’s actions and needs. Discerning your own attributes, whether positive, negative, or neutral, can help you decide whether you should lead, how you should lead, and how you need to be careful not to lead. Noticing the surface things about yourself and others shows awareness and sensitivity. But correctly construing those surface things into sound judgments about deeper character can make big differences in your leadership. 

Revelation

Attributes are significant in life generally. But attributes can be especially significant for leadership. Leadership highlights everything in a person. You can pretty well make your way quietly through life, keeping to yourself, with a wide range of positive, neutral, and negative attributes. We all do. But when you take on leadership, the exposure and stresses of the role tend to reveal and heighten your attributes, in whichever way they lead. Leadership may shine a wonderful light on your positive attributes, bringing you acclaim, for instance, for your stability, poise, and grace. Yet leadership may also shine an unwanted light on your negative attributes, bringing you shame, for instance, for your timidity and indecisiveness. Don’t expect to hide your negative attributes in a leadership role. Others will soon find them out. But also don’t expect to have all your attributes fail you in a challenging leadership role. One of the greatest satisfactions of leadership is to discover that you have an unexpected attribute that serves your organization’s mission well.

Range

When considering the leadership attributes that you’d like to acquire and exhibit, it’s good to keep in mind that leadership attributes can cover a broad range. Attributes tend to fall along a spectrum. You may have either a lot or a little of a certain attribute, but you still have the attribute available to you to exercise. You may not, for instance, be the bravest person, except in the right circumstance when your courage will instantly show up in spades. Thus, you have the attribute available to you, depending on how and when you draw on it. Attributes also tend to relate closely to one another in clusters. More of one attribute in a cluster may serve well to cover up less of another attribute in the same cluster. You may, for instance, lack judgment in decision making. Yet at the same time, you may have strong discernment skills. Thus, when making important decisions, you may be able to lean more heavily on your discernment, even while doubting your judgment. To put it another way, the better leadership outcomes are generally in exercising the right mix of attributes, not in their absolute presence or absence. Don’t doubt your leadership capacity, but discern frankly as to your best mix of leadership attributes.

Interpretation

When considering the leadership attributes that you’d like to acquire and exhibit, it’s also good to keep in mind that you may be able to interpret and apply your attributes in different ways. The above discussion has already suggested that you may be able to reinterpret your negative attributes into positive attributes, if you can uncover what the negative attributes may be hiding within you. Say, for instance, that you find yourself to be an unduly fearful and timid leader, when you are learning that your leadership role demands courage and decisiveness. Your fear, though, may only be a pronounced aversion to risk, in that you don’t want to be wrong, risking failure. You may be able to recast your undue fear as an appropriate desire to mitigate and diversify risk. You may find that you can help your organization or team to both risk boldly in smaller measures that won’t damage the organization or team in the event of failure, and that the organization or team can appropriately mitigate. Wherever you see your leadership qualities as in some way working against you, try to reinterpret them into qualities that work for you and your organization. Working well with what you have is another mark of an effective leader. 

Preferred

Turn now to a direct look at favorable leadership attributes. You’ve very likely already discerned several key ones from the above discussion. Honesty and integrity, referring to the ability of others to believe and rely on the leader’s communications, must be at or near the top of the list of preferred or required attributes. Resilience or even toughness, referring to the leader’s ability to withstand criticism, stress, and challenges, is another essential attribute, right alongside the twin attributes of responsibility and accountability that leadership demands. Leadership is not for the faint of heart. Vision and passion, including the consistent ability to see the bigger picture and to communicate and pursue it ardently, are other preferred leadership characteristics. Wisdom and insight, referring to both seeing patterns and knowing how to align the organization with them, are other greatly useful attributes. Judgment goes right along with them. You may be able to list a dozen or more preferred leadership attributes. Take stock of your own attributes alongside the preferred attributes for leadership.

Helpful

Other attributes may be helpful to leadership, even if not necessary or even preferred for leadership. Intelligence may be a good example. Leaders don’t have to be the smartest one in the room. Indeed, it may often be better that they’re not acting that way, even if they are the smartest. Better instead to be a good listener. But intelligence can certainly help. Emotional intelligence, or the ability to interpret and support the emotional state or condition of others, can also be helpful. Articulateness is not necessary but can help a leader communicate and gain admiration and respect. A leader’s creativity, imagination, and innovativeness can also be helpful for generating fresh initiatives and new constructs, even if leaders can generally do without those gifts while relying on others to supply them within the organization. Flexibility and adaptability may be other useful gifts, even if a leader wouldn’t want to be too flexible too often, leaving an appearance of weakness, instability, or indecisiveness. Self-awareness, humility, collegiality, and empathy can be other helpful leader attributes, especially to self-correct while recognizing, supporting, and empowering others. Transparency can be another helpful leader attribute, balanced by an executive’s need for confidentiality. Once again, you could probably list a dozen other helpful attributes, while taking stock of your own.

Disqualifying

Candidates for leadership may instead, though, have disqualifying attributes. Consider disqualifying attributes to highlight the preferred and critical attributes of leadership listed above. Indeed, take the above list of preferred or critical attributes, to consider their opposites as disqualifying characteristics. Dishonesty would be prime among the characteristics to condemn a leadership candidate. If you can’t trust a leader’s integrity, you have little reason to trust the team or organization. Weakness or helplessness would be another good reason to reject a leadership candidate. A leader must above all be able to survive in the job, when a weak or helpless leader won’t. Irresponsibility and unaccountability should likewise disqualify a leadership candidate. The buck must stop at the top. Likewise, shortsightedness, blindness, or myopia should generally disqualify a leadership candidate. Organizations should not be blindsided, and it’s generally the leader’s job to see that the organization is not. Poor judgment may be another disqualifying attribute. Organizations can ill afford an incompetent decision maker at the top. 

Reflection

What are your strongest leadership attributes? Which preferred or critical leadership attributes do you feel you may be lacking? Do you have an opportunity to seek a mentor to help you develop or acquire those lacking attributes? Who has been your most-influential leadership mentor? On whose leadership would you wish to pattern your own leadership, if you could choose any past or present leader? Do you have disqualifying leadership attributes? If so, can you see how to reinterpret them into potential positive attributes? What neutral but eccentric or unusual attributes do you have that you may need to explain to others who would misinterpret them? Have you ever been conscious of putting on a persona to impress or manipulate another? Are you aware when you are projecting or exaggerating characteristics that you may not possess in any significant depth, simply to get through a situation? Are you able to acknowledge when you lack an attribute and may need to lean on others for it? Can you discern your own attributes and the attributes of others with reasonably sound insight? If you are already leading, what attributes of your own has your leadership revealed that surprised, pleased, or disappointed you? 

Key Points

• Leaders benefit from having appropriate leadership attributes.

• Leadership attributes can be positive, neutral, or negative. 

• Recognize eccentric attributes to avoid their misinterpretation.

• Attributes can influence or determine one’s approach to leadership.

• We acquire attributes early in life and through influences and events.

• Beware projecting false personas not backed by genuine attributes.

• Your ability to discern your own and others’ attributes can help.

• Leadership challenges test and reveal a leader’s attributes.

• Attributes exist in ranges and clusters in complex interplay.

• Reinterpreting a negative attribute may turn it into a positive.

• Leadership involves preferred and critical attributes like integrity.

• Leadership can benefit from other attributes not strictly necessary.

• Some negative attributes disqualify candidates from leadership.

Read Chapter 5.