Executive Leadership - Whatever That May Mean

We hear stories about leadership all the time. Some of them inspiring (Washington, Lincoln, Truman, Kennedy) and some of them despising (Hitler, Stalin, Ebbers, Lay). There are literally thousands of people and heaven only knows how many companies who for eons have made a very handsome living trying to understand what leadership is and how it is acquired, how to grow it, nurture it, develop it, implant it, copy it, manufacture it, buy it, sell it, define it, and you name it.

Over the last fourteen years , we have asked recruiters to tell us what the key characteristics or criteria are that they are asked to “find” when given a search assignment. We have always ended up with a list of ten to twelve items, but the top three every single year have always been leadership, industry-specific experience, and functional expertise. You look at the list, and the only one that sounds like rocket science is leadership. Given the current tenure of the corner office these days, it sure feels like the search continues.

I am sure that I, like many of us, have thought about this question for a long time. I am also sure like many of us, that I don’t have an answer. I do, however, have an opinion, and like most opinions, it is based more on “feeling” than “fact.” While I don’t know what leadership is, like pornography as they say, I know it when I see it.

That said I also have a theory which may speak to leadership per se or may just address managing, but it goes like this:

When it comes to judging the performance of a manager, they really get paid to do three critical things: Hire, Fire and Evaluate.

At the risk of being overly simplistic, the rest you can learn from books and on-the-job experience. Said differently, leaders are judged by their ability to make judgments which are subjective which means they are always open to interpretation and argument. And who is to say what’s right or wrong, but they have to make the judgment nonetheless and then be able to take the heat from those who disagree. In short, they must take a stand for a belief.

Not easy stuff.

P.S. In case you don't recognize it, the "post office" picture of some of our more well known "leaders" was in BusinessWeek a year or two ago, I just don't remember exactly when, just thought it was cool.