What are the Boss of the Year leadership yardsticks? ®


The study of leadership throughout history is marked by a focus on great men and women. From these men and women we derive benchmarks for leadership styles and attributes.


to workplace leadership than was the case in the past (one that encompasses the organisations search for improvement and the need to lead across corporate, process and human dimensions) we have seen that alongside new approaches and behaviours required, some of the essential character attributes of good leaders remain the same.


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We all know that the issue of leadership, in particular the quality of workplace leadership, is one that receives much attention from scholars as they study, analyse, and postulate on what constitutes good leadership.


• Is it an art, or is it a science? They ask and debate


• Is one born a leader, or can one learn and grow into a leader? This is yet another perennial question.


• What are the characteristics of a good leader?


• How much of it is skill, and


• How much is attributed to innate attributes of personality and character?


• What makes people think their boss is a good boss? A good leader?


All these questions are important – and the Boss of the Year®


Award has been, and


will remain, an exercise in trying to get the answers, not theoretically, but empirically by finding those incumbents who demonstrate the attributes and the skills that South Africans at work deem to be worthy of recognition.


An overview of what the entries have shown over the past 21 years reveals that leadership success can be explained by a mixture of characteristics:


Inspire Trust – The attributes: character e.g. courage, humility, perseverance.


Inspire Confidence – The competencies: observable abilities e.g. Interpersonal relations communication abilities.


4 issue 3 • careersuccess


ome of the benchmarks have stood the test of time. Even though today the quest is for a more holistic approach


Inspire Commitment – The skills: Performance drivers, strategy, talent- retention, people development processes.


Some of the lessons that Boss of the Year® taught!


We also refer to them as ‘bosses’ for many have


Leaders are not the privy of a certain gender, age religion or race; neither are they all tall, grandiloquent and charismatic; nor are they from particular geographic areas or socio- economic backgrounds; and last but not least, thankfully they are not found only in certain professions or fields of enterprise.


But despite their different physical, academic and professional profiles, they do have common characteristics that distinguish them – among which courage is fairly dominant.


The other common traits are: 1. Provides direction for the company and inspires goals for their people.


2. Facilitates growth by promoting career development paths for employees.


3. Fosters diversity in the workplace with programmes that encourage intercultural appreciation.


4. Creates forums for managers and employees to resolve workplace issues.


5. Supports employees with healthcare and pension benefits.


6. Promotes workplace security and safety


7. Are role models in ethics, etiquette and listening skills.


We refer to our search for the Boss of the Year®


as an exercise in looking for South


Africa’s top bosses, and when the six finalists are elected they are in fact the top six – that is why when one is then elected as Boss of the Year®


but rather as titlebearer , because in essence (s)he is a spokesperson for the top bosses.


From this process, the titlebearer emerges.


NB: It is an important characteristic of this Award, that we do not refer to a “winner”, but rather to a “titlebearer” – as (s)he becomes the ultimate spokesperson. We are of the view that all 6 finalists are winners in having come this far.


we don’t refer to him/her as winner,


The titlebearer is announced at a gala lunch on National Bosses Day.


reasons – it is the only term which is a common denominator for those whose job title signifies a position of being in charge of a team, a department or the company; it is also because these people embody what the term boss means in modern times: not an autocrat who commands, but a leader who inspires, mentors and motivates others to excellence.


We recognise, however, that in order to get to know who these leaders are, we need to appeal to the workforce to bring them to our attention. Hence, we work with the marketplace to offer prizes to the nominators whose bosses, make it to the finals. (Naturally prizes are awarded to the finalists as well).


The selection


process... The process has two phases:


Phase 1: Information gathering from the Nominations and Nominators.


Phase 2: Information gathering from the Nominees themselves.


The Nominees, who get to the Finals, then go through a 3-step process: • A taped phone interview.


• Face a panel of judges for an hour’s interview.


• Deliver an impromptu speech in the evening of the panel interview.


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