What a fabulous article on CNN opinion.com. (Read the entire article here.)
Jeffrey Cohn, the author of “Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders” wrote a terrific piece titled “Why we pick bad leaders, and how to spot the good ones.”
I’m going to send Mr. Cohn a a certificate naming him a black belt in leadership. Why are we so bad at picking good leaders? According to Mr. Cohn:
“The short answer is, we focus on all the wrong things, like a candidate’s charm, their stellar resume with her academic credentials. None of this has any bearing on leadership potential. And despite claims to the contrary, even a candidate’s past results have little bearing on whether the promoted individual will succeed once promoted.”
Cohn goes on to describe seven “fundamental leadership qualities” that make an effective leader. His qualities are in perfect harmony with the leadership characteristics I described in THINK Like a BLACK BELT.
In THINK, I’ve distilled leadership down to three major characteristics. You should know I arrived at these characteristics through working with the junior instructors in my martial arts program. Over several years I kept asking these kids what qualities or characteristics they thought a good leader should possess. Here’s what they came up with:
- Courage
- Compassion
- Wisdom
Courage is an identical match. Courage is that developed quality that allows us to do what is right or necessary even in the face of fear in adversity. Cohn ads, “courage springs from a leader’s core values and commitment to a vision.”
Cohn highlights two qualities I would put in the category of Compassion:
- Empathy
- Emotional intelligence
Both of these qualities are characteristic of a leader who knows how to pay attention to those around him. A good leader knows the needs and wants of the people he serves and is willing to invest the time necessary to understand his followers and understand what most motivates each of them as individuals.
Cohn’s qualities of integrity, vision, and judgment match nicely with our characteristic of Wisdom. Wisdom is that transcendent blend of knowledge, experience, and awareness or mindfulness that makes an authentic leader effective.
The one quality that Cohn identifies that I couldn’t neatly place into one of our leadership characteristics was passion. Though the more I think about it, I believe passion goes hand-in-hand with courage. As Cohn points out in his article:
“Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, was ridiculed in 2001 for clinging to a company that many called ‘Amazon.bomb.’ It is now valued at $89 billion. Bezos told me that it was his inner passion that fuels his drive to keep pushing forward even the darkest days of the dot-com crash, when the company was teetering on the brink of collapse.”
Emotional intelligence could just as easily fit with the wisdom characteristic as well as with compassion. It takes insight, experience, and mindful awareness to understand the feelings, needs, and motivations of others.
When choosing a leader, whether in business, the next time you go to the polls, or when you’re looking for your kid’s next coach, it’s crucial to consider these characteristics and qualities. We too often pick leaders because of charisma, physical attractiveness, or simply because they talk a good talk.
If were going to move forward in business, or as a society, we better start picking leaders who can walk the walk as well as talk the talk. We need to start picking leaders who think like black belts.
I think Jeffrey Cohn for his compelling and insightful article. I certainly hope we can contact him so I can present him with his degree in Black Belt Mindset!
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Think Like A Black Belt: The Blog! 
Wow. Great thoughts. Sounds like a good read. A common characteristic of all great leaders is their willingness to take risks. This takes courage. Just being a leader doesn’t give you courage, but courage can give you a position in leadership.