What are the 3 essential qualities of effective leadership?

The foundation of every successful CEO is leadership. The two other roles (management and entrepreneurship) that make up the 3 essential roles of every CEO builds upon the success of your role as a leader.

The  3 Essential Qualities Of Effective Leadership

In continuing our discussion on the role of the CEO as a leader, here are three essential qualities of effective leadership;

• Character             –              a life worth emulating
• Vision                   –             an idea to die for
• Competence        –            expertise in any particular discipline, field or thing

Character

Character is the foundation and the first criteria among the qualities of effective leadership. This is where it all begins–within. Who you are (character) ultimately defines your success or failure as a leader. And when the leader fails, the whole organization fails.

Character is the price you pay as a CEO for the leadership role you play. Being the CEO may confer on you the highest position in a business, but it doesn’t make you a leader.

Being a CEO doesn’t mean you have the capacity to lead. The capacity to lead comes from your character as a person. It is very critical you understand this; your position as a CEO doesn’t confer the capacity to lead. Using your position as a strategy for leading is the definition of autocracy (leadership through force).

True leaders (the kind that makes organizations effective) lead through permission (character) and not by position (authority). This is why character becomes a must. This is why character precedes all other qualities of effective leadership.

What is character?

The dictionary defines character “as the stable and distinctive qualities built into an individual’s life which determine his or her response regardless of circumstances.” Here’s another definition of character as given by The United States Air Force Academy  which I think best captures the essence of character;

“We define character as the sum of those qualities of moral excellence that stimulate a person to do the right thing, which is manifested through right and proper actions despite internal or external pressures to the contrary.”

The key word to note about this definition is the word ‘sum’ implying that character is not made up of only one thing, but composed of more than one thing. Character means ‘wholeness’. It is the summation of several qualities, behaviours and thoughts that reveals the totality of a person.

Character is not only a question of what a person does (action) it also includes both how you do (attitude) and why you do (thought). Character is the whole of a person; an integration of “what you do” (actions, behaviours); “how you do” (disposition, attitude); and “why you do” (intention, thought).

Character is the map that guides your behaviours, thoughts and actions. Once it is flawed, every other thing else will be flawed. If it’s powerful enough to move you to act (behave) in a certain way (attitude), then it’s really who you are (character). It’s the summation of these three parts that makes up the whole of your character as a person.

This is why when asked to describe a person’s character, most people simply mention certain qualities, attributes or traits about that person ranging from the way he or she thinks (intents or motives), the manner in which they do things (attitudes or dispositions) and what they do (behaviours or  actions).

Character as one of the qualities of effective leadership, cannot be formed, judged or described in isolation without these three key factors. Why? Because as much as your actions or behaviours (what you do) have some things to say about you, so also does your dispositions or attitudes (how you do) and your intentions or thoughts (why you do).

Collectively, they make up who you really are. You cannot separate one part from the other, everything must all add up. Indeed, when it comes to character, everything counts!

Why is character an essential Quality of effective leadership?

Because every organization takes on the personality of its leaders. Your people are fractional bits and pieces of who you are as their leader. Who you are as a person reflects on the entire organization. So if you happen to be a wrong person as a result of a flawed character, then the whole organization is in jeopardy. You cannot expect to lead the right kind of people that an organization needs to be effective when you are not the right person yourself.

It takes only the RIGHT kind of leader to lead the RIGHT kind of people necessary to achieve the RIGHT kind of results an effective organization desires.

This is the ultimate test of your leadership role as a CEO because it takes character to inspire the commitment and efforts of the right kind of people you need to work with in order to succeed.

Attracting the RIGHT people required in building a team of high performers demand high standards and you are the first person everyone looks up to as the leader to model these high standards through your character.

You can hone your leadership skills and build your character by earning a masters in organizational leadership to further ensure that you attract the RIGHT people and exact the RIGHT results on your company.

As the CEO, do you have the right character to lead? How well have you successfully led yourself? Is your life worth emulating? What is commendable about your existence? Can others proudly look up to you? What makes you worthy of other people’s obedience? What other reasons besides being in the front should make them follow you?

That you’re in the front doesn’t confer the right to lead. Will they still follow you if you were at the back or in the middle among them? If it wasn’t for the salary, will they still come to work for you?

True leadership begins with you. Will they still obey and be loyal to you if you lost the top position? Will they still commit to the dream? Will they still follow if all you have left is your character? Will you still be able to inspire their loyalty if you lose everything else except your life?

There you are; being a CEO has very little to do with position and everything to do with you. The ultimate test of leadership is not power, position, money, talent or skill but character. Who you are as a person speaks louder than the title you bear and the position you occupy.

A CEO without a sound character is a tyrant. The position you occupy and the title you bear will only amplify who you truly are as a person. The king of pigs is still fundamentally a pig, no more, no less.

This is why it’s most crucial that you work on yourself long enough before you step into the position of a CEO. The reality is this; whatever flaw you have in you as a person will be multiplied once you assume any leadership position and whatever strength you possess will likewise be multiplied.

Your position as a CEO will not hide who you fundamentally are; it will only further reveal it. So now is the best time to work on yourself–CHARACTER.

How do you begin to work on your character?

That is a subject for another day; watch out for the continuation “HOW TO DEVELOP THE RIGHT CHARACTER FOR EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP”. Because this is a series, you need to stay updated by subscribing to naijapreneur!

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What role has character played in your leadership experience as a CEO?

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 “Are you the kind of leader the RIGHT kind of people will like to work with?”

Last week, I began a series on The 3 essential roles of every CEO, this is a continuation that begins with the role of the CEO as a Leader.

 The Leadership Role Of Every CEO

The job of a CEO begins with a leadership role. The essence of your leadership role as a CEO is to make the organization effective –capable of doing the RIGHT things. An effective organization is one with the right people all occupying the right positions collectively engaged in doing the right things. That is;

‘right PEOPLE + right POSITIONS + right ACTIONS = EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION’

 Making the above equation a reality in an organization is the primary task of the CEO as a leader. It is a three-fold task that begins with you the leader. The above equation is ‘what’ you need to do as a leader, as you must have probably noticed, the underlying theme in the equation is the word “right.”

Which clearly captures the whole essence of the role of the CEO as a leader –making an organization effective. I wish these were all you needed in order to succeed in your role as a leader, but there’s still one missing element in the equation that is vitally important. That missing element is YOU – the leader!

Here’s what I mean.

Building a successful business takes the collective efforts of others and not just the effort of only you the owner. It is not a one man show. As bestselling author Robert Kiyosaki rightly observed;

“Business is like making babies, it’s not something you can do all by yourself; it requires the collective efforts of others.”

You see, while no one person (leader) can single-handedly build a great company; one wrong person (leader) can single-handedly bring down a company. How? When you as the business owner begins to think it’s all about you.

This is usually the case with most small business owners. I know you are the owner of your business no doubt, but you also need to understand this fact; before you chose to become a business owner, success was very much all about you and the result of your personal efforts, but now that you’re running your own business; success is all about others and the result of their collective efforts.

A majority of businesses fail largely because of this singular factor, so it’s highly important you understand this crucial point and begin to make the necessary paradigm shift early. The success or failure of an organization depends largely on how well the CEO plays their role as a leader.

As the CEO, your role as a leader demands that you shift your focus from yourself and begin to focus more on others and what you collectively want to achieve. Management guru Jim Colins in his legendary book “good to great” talks about the kind of leadership required to take an organization from being a good one to being a great one; ‘level 5 leadership’.

Here is what he identified as the key trait of a ‘level 5 leader’;

“ambition first and foremost for the company and concern for its success rather than for one’s own riches and personal renown.”

Leadership is about Teamwork

Business is a team sport and only the teams with the best players can win. To build a winning team requires a leader that not only wins but also knows how to lead a pack of winners and make winners out of losers. Winners being who they are don’t naturally like to hang around losers even though that loser bears the title of a CEO.

That you now occupy a leadership position as a result of your CEO title doesn’t necessarily mean you are a leader. Being a leader is much more than occupying a position.

As I pointed out last week in the first article in this series, positions or titles doesn’t make you; functions and duties do. As a CEO in your role as a leader, the bulk of your work is mainly people-centered. Your functions and duties (responsibilities) majorly revolve around working with people and leading them. And when it comes to people, knowing ‘what’ to do alone won’t do the trick.

People are not things. They don’t care how much you know and can do until they know how much you care and make them feel. Therefore, knowing ‘what’ to do is only one part of the story, knowing ‘who’ to become in order to do what needs to be done is the main story.

The real challenge here is gathering the right kind of people to work with as a team, for only the right kind of people can be truly effective –capable of doing the right things. You see the right people are very rare to find or attract because they only submit to the right kind of leadership.

They are not predominantly motivated by how much they are paid; they are mainly motivated by passion and will only follow the right leader whose vision, goal or objective they consider worthy of their commitment and loyalty. You cannot out rightly buy them over; you earn their commitment and loyalty. Figuring how to be the right kind of leader is your main responsibility as a CEO.

So here’s the big question;

“Are you the kind of leader the RIGHT kind of people will like to follow?”

The Right Kind of Leader

Making an organization effective –capable of doing the RIGHT things – is the work of a CEO as a leader. But for an organization to be truly effective, everyone within the organization, including you the CEO as the leader must be effective –capable of doing the RIGHT things.

You are not exempted from the equation just because you are occupying the highest position. In fact, and this is the most critical factor about your leadership role as a CEO, until you the leader is effective, don’t expect anyone else to be effective.

In other words, you must first become the right kind of leader (effective) before gathering the right kind of people (team) and putting each in the right seat (position) all working collectively in the right direction (vision, goal or objective) for the benefit of the entire organization.

You are the missing piece of the puzzle. Without an effective leader, no organization can be effective. So here is what the complete equation will look like with you the leader inside;

‘right LEADER + right PEOPLE + right POSITIONS + right ACTIONS
=
EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION’

Stay tuned to this page and find out what it takes to be the right kind of leader that is capable of making an organization effective by signing up here to receive the latest articles by mail as we continue this exciting series – “The 3 essential roles of every CEO.”

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