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FEATURE THE LEADER DEBATE


15.04.15 www.thebookseller.com


to the noises of the jungle, as it is often at the front line that drivers for change are discovered and the way forward can be perceived more clearly. A great leader needs great values; many have


strong ethics and values around excellence, conscientiousness, integrity and honesty. That is a really good start. To be the best leader you will also need a number of other “personal conscience” values such as fairness, humility, forgiveness and patience and altruistic love for others—these are often present, though sometimes quite hidden in the subconscious. Ask yourself: “Do I have these in my personal life?” Great leadership also requires “self- determination” values such as courage, ambition, drive, energy and resilience. What else do you need to be a great leader? A good intellect, maybe? Yes, but perhaps surprisingly, research shows that the best leaders need only have an IQ of around 10% above the average—that is, around 115. Anything higher than that has no effect on leadership capability. The current focus on leadership development at business schools and other institutions is around strategic leadership, but really that is just a variety of processes that require a slightly above-average IQ.


BE AWARE The asset that has the greatest impact on leadership capability is Emotional Intelligence (EI). EI enables a leader to manage their emotions and to learn better behaviours in order to help them improve and sustain performance levels—both for themselves and for the people around them. A leader needs to be empathetic, which my


colleague John Knights, the chair of executive coaching firm LeaderScape, says was part of his journey: “When I was in senior leadership roles I, like almost all leaders, relied on the behaviours I had developed through my experiences of life. Some were good and some less so. My first 360° assessment revealed that I was intimidating and did not care about people. I had no idea about being intimidating because inside I felt quite gentle. And I knew I cared about people—I was just not communicating it. “But over the years I have learned how to


behave in different ways, so how I really am and how I want to be can more easily be seen by the people I work with. I am still far from perfect and it has to be seen as a life journey, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.” A leader also needs to manage conflict, act as a change catalyst, work on developing


FIVE TRAITS OF A SUCCESSFUL LEADER 1 2


They know IQ is merely the entry requirement and it is Emotional


Intelligence that is the “discriminatory competence” for successful careers


They are aware of the impact of their mood on others and can manage their emotions well. Uncontrolled temper tantrums, losing your cool, bullying and sarcasm are not good for you, your team, or your organisation


on their performance


3 4


They welcome open and honest feedback without getting


defensive. There is no need to descend into masochism, and fishing for compliments sometimes lands you a boot


5


They can laugh at themselves. It builds your optimism and that of


the group around you


They take time to consider their own feelings and reflect honestly


the people around them, show initiative, be optimistic, have self-confidence—and all these things can be learned once the granular behaviours have been identified and practised. In our book Leadership Assessment for Talent Development (Kogan Page), which describes our approach to leadership development in greater detail, we explain our latest research that shows, among other things, that the most common granular behaviour leaders need to improve upon is “demonstrating an awareness of how others are feeling”. The final step is moving beyond normal rational or logical thinking to bring intuition, insights, instinct and ethical philosophy into your judgement process when making decisions. Part of that process includes managing the ego, in order to make decisions for the benefit of the whole publishing company, its staff and its authors, and to be fully conscious of when a decision is being made for our own benefit. So to navigate the Amazon jungle successfully,


Duncan Enright (pictured top) is a director at


LeaderShape and he is also the Labour candidate for the Witney constituency. Enright is speaking today at Meeting the Challenge of Digital Transition at 11.30 a.m. in the Olympia Room Grand Hall.


to outwit the agile competitors lying in wait, to bring the expedition confidently onto the right track, you have to want to be a great leader. You have to be willing to work really hard on changing yourself consciously, rather than just letting your experiences rewire your brain. The good news is that most people in our business are very creative, hard-working and persistent—so anything is possible. 


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