Authors: Marion Goetze, Chris Henderson, Joan Oladunjoye, & Callan Williamson
Leadership isn’t a one-size-fits-all concept. As a team, we recently tackled the task of ranking 20 leadership attributes, intending to find common ground. Instead, a fascinating discussion emerged about how our unique backgrounds, experiences, and work environments shape what we value in a leader. Interestingly, the only point of consensus we reached was on the final attribute, ranking Ambitious at number 20, proving that our perspectives on leadership are as diverse as we are.
Diverse Perspectives, Shared Questions
This activity raised some thought-provoking questions:
- Are there traits that are universally important in a leader?
While traits like honesty, competence, and caring often ranked high individually, our rankings varied widely. Adaptive leadership theory suggests that effective leaders are those who can mobilize others to tackle challenges and thrive by adapting their approach to the needs of the situation (Khan, 2017, p. 179). While a consensus was not reached, we determined that we value supportive, fair-minded, competent, and caring leaders. - How do different fields of work influence what we value?
For example, those working in creative industries may prioritize imagination, while leaders in technical fields may focus on competence and dependability. Education often prioritizes empathy and forward-thinking, as Harris (2012) argues that leadership for school improvement focuses on developing the capacity of others to sustain progress over time. - How does poor leadership affect perspectives on exceptional leadership?
What is often valued in a leader is contextualized through the experience of poor leadership. Personal experiences of incompetent leadership or leadership focused on personal ambition rather than capacity building in their team lead to a desire for knowledgeable and competent team leaders over ambitious forward thinkers. One group member who worked in the healthcare and post-secondary education fields experienced this personally. This contradicts what Innes-Cleveland (2012) states about ambition in leaders. - Do some traits complement or conflict with others?
We debated whether being supportive and decisive can coexist, for example. Can a leader be approachable without compromising the ability to make tough decisions? Such dilemmas highlight the complexity of leadership, which often requires balancing competing priorities and taking calculated risks (Huggins et al., 2017, p. 8). One idea brought forward to marry decisiveness and supportiveness was honesty in leadership. Leaders could reduce the impact of having to be decisive rather than supportive by opening up to their teams to explain why decisions are being made in a non-supportive manner and holding themselves accountable. (Huggins et al., 2017).
How Our Experiences Shaped Our Views
Each of us approached this exercise through the lens of our professional and personal experiences. For instance, those working in dynamic, fast-changing environments gravitated toward traits like adaptability and forward-thinking. Others, perhaps in more structured settings, valued dependability and straightforwardness. Finally, those of us in environments that require a strong focus on care centred on compassionate traits. This resonates with the view that leadership capacity building requires recognizing individual differences and creating growth opportunities (Huggins et al., 2017, p. 7).
The Curious Case of Ambition
Our consensus on Ambition as the least essential trait sparked an interesting conversation. Why did we collectively devalue it? Many of us felt that ambition, while valuable, can be detrimental if not aligned with the team’s or organization’s goals. Leadership, as Secretan (2004, p. 22, as cited in Workman & Cleveland-Innes, 2012), emphasizes inspiring and guiding others toward shared success rather than pursuing personal objectives. According to Lee (2011, p. 226), in a study where South African managers rated the same characteristics found on our worksheet, ambition was rated at the bottom of the list, making it the least preferred characteristic. This led us to think that not only was ambition viewed as a less desirable quality, but possibly a negative one. In work environments where collaboration, integrity, and nurturing leadership are valued, ambition in someone could be seen as stepping on others or prioritizing personal gain over team-oriented success. Regardless of position, this view may be why people prefer traits that promote harmony and shared achievements over individual advancement, especially in a leader.
Finding Overlap: Common Threads in Leadership
Despite our differences, specific attributes stood out as universally valued: honesty, competence, and caring. These traits are foundational to building trust, collaboration, and confidence, essential elements of effective leadership (Workman & Cleveland-Innes, 2012, p. 319). In addition to the commonly valued traits, as noted by O’Toole (2008), “we can at least say that the role, task, and responsibility of values-based leaders is to help followers realize the most important ends that they hold dear but cannot obtain by themselves” (p. 90).
Moving Forward: What We Learned
This exercise was not just about ranking traits; it was about understanding each other and, ultimately, what makes leadership effective. Here are a few takeaways:
- Leadership is personal. Our experiences shape our values, and diversity enriches how we understand and practice leadership.
- Context matters: The “right” leadership traits depend on the environment and the people involved, and the focus and expression of these traits change situationally.
- Perspective and experience affect understanding: how we interpret the value of leadership attributes depends on how we process these concepts through our respective worldviews.
- Semantics are a factor: how we construe the definition of a word has a significant impact on how that trait is ranked.
- Disagreement fosters growth: We gained a broader perspective on leadership by discussing our differences.
Despite the differences in our rankings of essential leadership traits, we did arrive at a common perspective on what defines a high-value leader:
A high-value leader will foster abilities in their team, including leadership capacity. This demonstrates that they are committed to their team and not just personal growth; it also demonstrates bravery in that they are not afraid to build up others or put themselves at risk. A leader cannot only be committed to a cause or their work but must also be committed to the ones they lead (Huggins et al., 2017, pp. 10-11; O’Toole, 2008, p. 90).
What Do You Value in a Leader?
We are curious; what do you think makes a great leader? Are there traits you believe are universally important, or does it all depend on the situation? Join the conversation in the comments and share your perspective. Let’s continue exploring the many facets of leadership together.
References
Harris, A. (2012). Distributed leadership in schools: Developing the leaders of tomorrow. Routledge.
Huggins, K. S., Klar, H. W., Hammonds, H. L., & Buskey, F. C. (2017). Developing leadership capacity in others: An examination of high school principals’ personal capacities for fostering leadership. International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership, 12(1). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1138597
Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or transactional leadership in current higher education: A brief comparison. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3).
Lee, G. J. (2011). Mirror, mirror: Preferred leadership characteristics of South African managers. International Journal of Manpower, 32(2), 211–232. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437721111130215
O’Toole, J. (2008). Notes toward a definition of values-based leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 1(1). https://scholar.valpo.edu/jvbl/vol1/iss1/10
Workman, T., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2012). Leadership, personal transformation, and management. Leadership Notes, 13(4), 314–320. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v13i4.1383
This is interesting insight into your discussion. Our group shared similar thoughts. How we ranked and valued certain traits was certainly contextual. Working in a creative agency, I would value some leadership attributes much more than I would in an academic or government setting. I worked on a creative team inside a government organisation. There were collisions of values regularly. I tried to level set my perspective across all of my experiences, but it was difficult.
Ambition is certainly a double-edged sword. I have seen ambition in leadership in the interest of success as the whole, but I have also seen it favour self-serving interests. Half of our group ranked “ambitious” at the bottom, while the other half placed “independent” there. I think the reasons are similar; independent ambition is a trait that does not serve effective leadership.
Thanks, Stephen. I’ve had similar experiences in which leadership traits were differentially expressed between organization types and situationally within an organization. It’s almost a dynamic equilibrium, depending on the context.