{"id":1397,"date":"2018-11-16T00:27:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T00:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/?p=1397"},"modified":"2018-12-15T08:59:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-15T08:59:56","slug":"leadership-is-more-than-being-kind-empathetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/rwc-blog\/leadership-is-more-than-being-kind-empathetic\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership is More Than Being Kind\/ Empathetic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I’ve been reading (particularly in the LinkedIn environment) a lot about the traits of kindness and empathy being “the” most important prerequisites for anyone to have who aspires to be a leader. Well, I beg to differ, and here’s why…<\/span><\/p>\n

While kindness and empathy are most certainly key character traits of effective leaders, these dimensions – in the absence of all the other elements\/ strengths that make a leader effective – are going to result in yet another populist leader (no more and no less). What is a populist leadership style ? One where the leader is first and foremost transfixed on making and keeping the people who they represent happy\/ content. In short, these leaders are expert at forming a position\/ vision that they know will sit well (i.e. not be in conflict) with those who they represent – irrespective of whether or not that position is reflective of the “right<\/strong><\/span>” position\/ decision that will “best serve\/ meet the interests of at least the majority of stakeholders<\/span><\/strong>“.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just out of interest, over the years I have found the following strengths\/ traits to be of equal<\/strong> importance when it comes to being an effective leader:<\/span><\/p>\n

i. Strong conviction in conceived organisation vision\/ direction.<\/span><\/p>\n

ii. Strong communication capabilities – and an ongoing willingness to communicate. Statements need to be made in a matter-of-fact clear way without “fluff”, so that clear meaning can quickly be established by the recipient\/ audience and trust can be assigned to the messages conveyed by the leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

iii. Strong organisation\/ coordination\/ management capabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

iv. Forthcoming in saying “no” – as\/ when situations justify this response.<\/span><\/p>\n

v. Makes decisions based mostly on empirical evidence and not gut instinct.<\/span><\/p>\n

vi. Not orientated towards trying to please stakeholders; and instead is strongly orientated towards making the “right<\/span><\/strong>” decisions in the best interests of stakeholders all relevant factors considered, with such decisions having the greatest potential to yield the best possible outcomes for at least the majority of stakeholders.<\/span><\/p>\n

vii. Is motivated by wanting to achieve the best possible outcomes – and not self-interest.<\/span><\/p>\n

viii. Is inclusive – yet is judicious about factoring input from others into their decision-making process, and is not afraid to omit certain input on the basis of irrelevancy\/ immateriality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

iv. Is not threatened by others, and therefore appoints colleagues on the basis of merit first and foremost – even if the skill set\/ knowledge of certain colleagues is superior to their own.<\/span><\/p>\n

x. Maintains a positive outlook, despite the issues\/ problems that are in front of them at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

xi. Is tenacious – determined to realise the outcomes\/ goals that they set for themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

xii. Is prepared to channel organisation resources towards boosting the performance and enablement of certain stakeholders over others – is not afraid to more thoroughly support those stakeholders who demonstrate greater willingness to help themselves and who support the vision and goals of the organisation.<\/span><\/p>\n

xiii. Is prepared to exit stakeholders who ultimately prove themselves to be defiant in relation to the chosen direction of the organisation, for the sake of maintaining unity and relative harmony between remaining stakeholders.<\/span><\/p>\n

xiv. Routinely demonstrates their understanding of, and commitment to, being collaborative.<\/span><\/p>\n

xv. And most importantly of all, demonstrates\/ proves their conviction in their purported leadership values by consistently “walking the talk”.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So yes, all leaders who are genuinely interested in achieving a first class organisation culture must most certainly come equipped with kindness and empathy; but if a leader’s quest is not only to be regarded as a “nice person” but also as being someone who has the capabilities and competencies to achieve commercial outcomes and be influential in ensuring the given organisation remains viable and achieves all it can (desires to) achieve within its means to do so, then they also need to possess the above additional traits at least.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I’ve been reading (particularly in the LinkedIn environment) a lot about the traits of kindness and empathy being “the” most important prerequisites for anyone to have who aspires to be a leader. Well, I beg to differ, and here’s why… While kindness and empathy are most certainly key character traits of effective leaders, these dimensions – in the absence of all the other elements\/ strengths that make a leader effective – are going to result in yet another populist…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1397"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1420,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions\/1420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}