Best Leadership Skills May Not Be the Ones You Think

Traditional ‘command and control’-style leadership is not only unhelpful, it can be counterproductive.

Which skills should people develop in order to become more successful leaders? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Vlatka Hlupic, CEO of The Management Shift Consulting Ltd, on Quora:

Individuals and organizations benefit from embracing a leadership style based on a new mindset, part of ‘The Management Shift’.

In this approach, leaders strive to serve, to inspire others to find the purpose and calling in the work they do, to unleash their passion and creativity, and to use all internal resources and intrinsic motivation to provide exceptional service.

They should also coach, mentor and provide enabling conditions for others to emerge as natural leaders and make decisions when they have most relevant knowledge to do so.

New leaders should be exemplars of honesty, integrity, humility, transparency and compassion. As Stephen Covey puts it in his book ‘The 8th Habit‘ [1], leaders should find their unique human voice by helping others to find theirs.

They should also inspire others to achieve their full potential as described by John Quincy Adams: ‘If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.’[2]

Traditional ‘command and control’-style leadership is not only unhelpful, it can be counterproductive, causing companies to lose their ability to create value, to innovate and stay competitive.

There is a growing body of research [3] showing that traditional leadership styles are inadequate for leading knowledge workers and they stifle creativity, motivation and engagement.

Professor Richard Roberts’[4] study on the causes of financial crisis showed that hubristic, autocratic or even bullying leaders constituted one of the main causes of the financial meltdown in 2008 and earlier.

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