What Makes a Great Leader?

I think we’d all agree that good organizations are built by good leaders. Since leadership is more of an art than a science, how can any of us objectively decide if someone is or has the potential to be a great leader?

A recent article in Inc. Magazine reported on research that Google has done about how they determine whether someone can be a great leader, and you may be surprised at their findings.

They researched current and past leaders and analyzed their skills. Of course, no surprise Google would use their analytical abilities to do something like this, but don’t overlook the fact that you can do it to—maybe on a slightly smaller scale—and I highly recommend you do.

They tracked the key behaviors they saw in their leaders and over time, developed a list of behaviors that the best leaders exhibited. Then they periodically asked employees to rate their managers on a scale of 1 to 5 using the leadership behaviors.

Here is where (maybe) the surprise comes in. The evaluation at Google spends almost no time on assessing a manager’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. All but one of the skills focuses on soft skills including “communication, feedback, coaching, teamwork, respect, and consideration.” 

One of the questions asked whether a manager micromanages. They found that managers who do micromanage, have lower engagement scores. As they put it, “For employees, engagement and satisfaction are largely based on autonomy and independence.” 

I used to work with a senior executive who believed that leaders were born—not made. I disagreed with him then, and now I have some data to back up my point that people can learn and grow into leaders if they have the right mentors, coaches, and data like this information from Google.

This information should give you a start on assessing leaders’ skills. And you can learn more from our award-winning book, The Manager’s Answer Book, which has a section devoted to developing management skills. It can help you identify the skills your staff members need to be strong leaders.

Barbara Mitchell