Matt Branaugh blogs in Out of Ur about a talk given by Dr. Henry Cloud concerning character, particularly the character of a leader. Dr. Cloud suggests leaders with character display these qualities (in italics):
- “You create and maintain trust by making sure your people know that you understand their opinions and concerns.” This means listening and evaluating and even empathizing. Still, when the result you wish to achieve is difficult and the path to success is not clear, you will need to lead your people through their objections and fear. This follows from #3 below.
- “You view truthfulness as more than just honesty, genuinely longing to digest information and adjust to the realities around you.”
- “You make a genuine effort to be results-oriented, and not just grace-oriented.” A leader who does not pay attention to results is not leading. But consistency is key here. From personal experience, it is traumatic when a leader (or leadership team) makes a sudden transition to a results orientation. Followers tend to lose trust in their leader(s) in such situations.
- “You embrace bad news. You get it and get moving.” There must be a way to prepare or practice this, like emergency workers do. Otherwise you lapse into shock (at least I do), and become paralyzed.
- “You don’t maintain your leadership abilities. You grow them.”
- “You accept the question of transcendence—you say you’re not God and act like it.”
