
How Do You Measure Leadership? - craigcannon
https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-do-you-measure-leadership/
======
freddyc
Over the years a test I've often used is asking "how does this person respond
to being challenged/questioned?" A great leader tends to embrace the fact that
someone is asking "why" and uses it as an opportunity to learn and potentially
convert the questioning party (if they're questioning something in the first
place, then you haven't nailed it 100%). A weak leader who doesn't have
confidence in their abilities sees the challenge as a personal attack and
reacts in a knee-jerk fashion (often, though not always, resulting in a
termination). If you can't reconcile differing opinions and convert those with
opposing views to you then you're doomed as a leader and odds are your
company/team will experience high turnover.

Obviously there's a whole range of other traits that make great leaders, but
I've found people that fail this test are almost always terrible leaders who
others don't want to work for.

~~~
coffeemug
I often see the opposite effect -- immature people who challenge leaders for
the sake of challenging them (perhaps to perform this test, perhaps because
they want to appear smarter than their managers, perhaps for other reasons).
They ask irrelevant questions, slow everything down, and have little intuition
about what's important to the business.

Most of these terminations I've seen haven't been about treating being
challenged as a personal attack. They've been about getting smug weenies out
of the organization so people can actually do their work.

~~~
nostrademons
There's a balance here. I had a manager at Google who once said the people who
were terminated at Google were those who "question too much and code too
little", i.e. you can always question your leaders, but you have to be willing
to buckle down and do the work if their answers are reasonable.

I don't think there's anything wrong with questioning a leaders' decisions,
but if you're doing it _all_ the time, you really ought to consider whether
you should be at that organization at all. It's like a therapist friend said
about one of my (poor) dating choices once: "Look, either you trust her or you
don't, but if you're constantly second-guessing her, you ought to evaluate
whether this is a relationship you want to be in or not. It's not fair to her,
and it's not fair to you." Same applies to corporations: ultimately you either
trust your leaders or you don't, and if you don't you should do both yourself
and the organization the favor of finding one you do trust.

~~~
vtange
Wow this is a really good comment. Great analogy with relationships and all.

Sometimes I think people naturally reflect who they are; i.e. a thief will
naturally be aware/paranoid of other thieves snooping around his stuff. So I
guess someone with trust issues probably sees himself as unfaithful?

~~~
SolaceQuantum
I would be wary about blatant comments like this. One can be paranoid because
they have had a history of being abused intimately within one's own personal
life, or stolen from, or have grown up in a neighbourhood with a lot of crime,
or have a mental illness such as PTSD, Schizophrenia, anxiety, etc. There are
a variety of reasons someone has trust issues, and only one of them is
"because they can't be trusted".

------
swombat
How do you measure a great car? There are three factors I've observed: great
cars can accelerate, great cars are fun to drive, and great cars have steering
wheels.

Sorry, but leadership cannot be reduced to these three factors. There are many
excellent leadership frameworks out there which provide great insight into how
different leaders operate, and what the great ones have in common. Look up
topics like Spiral Dynamics, the Action Logic leadership framework, Kegan &
Lahey, and the Integral framework, and you'll have some good starting points
on models of adult development that correlate to effective leadership.

~~~
JesseAldridge
It's disappointing to see this comment downvoted. The blog post honestly feels
kind of fluffy and is definitely far from scientific. A lot of smart people
have spent a lot time thinking about this question. It seems foolish to not
take the existing body of thought as a starting point.

~~~
calinet6
Complete fluff. Thank you both. Even the leaders in this specific post had a
model and influence, Ed Catmull saying specifically, "As we struggled to get
Pixar off the ground, Deming’s work was like a beacon that lit my way."
Deming's model of management was based on systems theory and psychology, and
was and remains sound. There's a reason for their success other than trite
personality traits.

------
edw519
I've had 80 bosses. 77 of them sucked. I would march through hell to help the
other 3 get something done. For me that pretty much sums it up. All the rest
is fluff.

FWIW, OP's 3 metrics:

    
    
      1. Clarity of Thought and Communication
      2. Judgment about People
      3. Personal Integrity and Commitment
    

Those should be necessary but not sufficient characteristics of _every_ person
in your organization.

EDIT, response to walterbell & el_benharneen about what made the 3 different
(in no particular order):

    
    
      - They always told the truth (to everybody).
      - They knew their stuff (tech, system, user domain).
      - They figured out the right thing to do.
      - They communicated often and flawlessly.
      - They did whatever it took to get the right thing done.
      - They smiled almost all the time.
      - They made each other person feel special.
      - They made work fun.
      - They were always teaching something.
      - They called bullshit instantly.
      - They protected their team.
      - They inspired us by showing how good things could be.

~~~
hinkley
My three best managers all managed UP the org chart. The worst ones managed
down.

Then there were a few in the middle who gave us too much autonomy, deferring
to our best judgement on everything, but not doing much firefighting on our
behalf.

The three worst ones were glorified secretaries. All they did was keep track
of who made what decisions so they'd know who to throw under the bus. The sort
of people who won't even break a tie on any important decision where the dev
leads are deadlocked. Small, petty excuses for humans that I hope never to
encounter again.

------
claar
Also a great read along these lines is "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership"
by John Maxwell, which I'm close to finishing currently.

Maxwell claims that leadership is influence, not authority. When I became a
co-founder, I thought that made me a leader. But as PG's excellent post and
Maxwell affirm, leadership is quite distinct from positional authority -- and
is much more difficult to attain.

Speaking directly to this post, I found that rating myself against Maxwell's
"21 laws" was a sobering and likely accurate gauge of my leadership ability.

~~~
jkaljundi
Years ago we had a board meeting, me being a youngish co-founder. We were
talking about founder titles. I remember forever Esther Dyson as an investor
and board member telling me then, that the titles do not mean much. You can be
a great leader inside your company without any titles or official role - this
is what you should aspire for. And you can be a CEO/CXO/VP without being a
leader at all.

~~~
user5994461
Higher title = ensure that people will listen to you for the first minute when
you address the audience and/or ensure they'll come at all.

Higher title = better pay

It also has some drawbacks but that's a different topic.

~~~
ktRolster
If you have leadership skills, you can help lead your company, even from a
low-end job title. However, it can take _years_ to build up respect from
management in that position.

If you have a high title, you get a level of respect immediately (whether you
deserve it or not). It goes a lot quicker.

~~~
drusenko
I think it's a bit more nuanced. If you have a high title, you get people's
_attention_ immediately, but it takes time to earn their _respect_ , and the
two are quite different.

~~~
jimbokun
Sure, but attention may be a prerequisite to respect. How can gain respect if
others don't know who you are or what you are contributing?

------
ChuckMcM
It is always interesting when someone who believes themselves to be a great
leader, discovers that they are not. And since many of the traits that make
great leaders, self awareness, humility, honesty, Etc. are missing in these
folks, the world around them sort of explodes when that realization hits. In
my experience it is a time when they are most likely to embrace 'leadership
through politics.' It is always a strong signal that it is time to distance
oneself from the faux leader's area of influence.

~~~
Godel_unicode
Is humility necessary for one to be a great leader? Steve Jobs and General
George Patton spring to mind.

I agree that a plurality of those traits are commonly found, I've always
wondered about causality and importance. Not disagreeing, genuinely curious
about your opinion.

Edit: clarity and expansion

~~~
ludicast
> Is humility necessary for one to be a great leader? Steve Jobs and General
> George Patton spring to mind.

As does (starting tomorrow) the new leader of the free world.

~~~
humanrebar
> As does (starting tomorrow) the new leader of the free world.

I'm not a fan of Trump's, but it takes an exotic form of humility to sell
gaudy things, have an off-the-wall hairstyle, and be a WWE performer. He's so
over the top that there has to be a level of ironic self-awareness in there
somewhere.

~~~
burkaman
Why does there have to be? He's been a public figure for like 40 years,
wouldn't someone have seen some evidence of self-awareness by now?

~~~
flukus
The election was the evidence, he's very self aware. You just don't like the
image he is purposefully projecting.

~~~
burkaman
What do you mean? Hasn't one of the stories of the election been people
constantly saying "he doesn't mean it, it's an act, it's just for votes", and
being proven wrong every time? Everyone around him, his kids, his biographers,
his employees, all say this is who he really is. So he's obviously aware of
the image he's projecting, but I don't think he's self-aware in the way that
comment implied, which was that he's just playing a character, and he's
certainly never shown any evidence of humility.

------
prewett
Leadership is people development. So, how many people have you developed? How
many times have you reproduced yourself?

If you want grow your company, you are going to have to reproduce yourself so
that the new you is doing the old role so that you can step into the new one,
or perhaps relieve yourself of excess roles. That role may or may not have the
title you had when you were doing it, however. You might be titled "CEO" when
you are leading a team of 5 people, but you will reproduce yourself as "Team
Leader" as you start adding teams.

Merely having clarity of thought and integrity does not make you a leader, it
makes you a great team member. Merely having good people judgement makes you a
good manager, not necessarily a good leader. Developing people makes you a
good leader. It's hard to do that without the other three, though.

------
arca_vorago
“Leadership is intangible, hard to measure, and difficult to describe. It's
quality would seem to stem from many factors. But certainly they must include
a measure of inherent ability to control and direct, self-confidence based on
expert knowledge, initiative, loyalty, pride and sense of responsibility.
Inherent ability cannot be instilled, but that which is latent or dormant can
be developed. Other ingredients can be acquired. They are not easily learned.
But leaders can be and are made.” General C. B. Cates, 19th Commandant of the
Marine Corps

Ingrained to my brain from my Marine Corps days is the acronym JJDIDTIEBUCKLE
as the list of leadership traits, and it has served me well since, although in
the civilian world I have had to lower my expectations of others around me in
having even a fraction of such traits.

Relevant reading for those curious about how the Corps approaches leadership:
[http://www.tecom.marines.mil/Portals/120/Docs/Student%20Mate...](http://www.tecom.marines.mil/Portals/120/Docs/Student%20Materials/CREST%20Manual/RP0103.pdf)

------
remarkEon
This is a hard question to answer, and my personal opinion is based on my
experience in the Army over a while. The best leaders I encountered managed to
somehow turn out the best _in the people they led._ That can manifest in a lot
of ways. Improvements on subordinate performance, increases in technical
proficiencies, a more disciplined approach to their work. Those are all good
metrics, but the best leaders managed to get their subordinates to actually
_want_ to improve on their own, without sufficient goading from their leaders.
Most of that, therefore, lands in the realm of understanding group dynamics,
behavioral economics, and leadership psychology.

------
eruditely
You should probably follow Nassim's idea of not trying to measure x
(leadership) vs output of leadership f(x) and try to measure the exposure and
how it impacts it. Since probably the most significant effort has been pulled
into probability theory and trying to get a measure of x that's probably the
place to look.

And you would NOT try to measure it as a point estimate as many have reminded
us, you would try to set bounds lower&upper.

------
jonathanstrange
What about this study mentioned in Kahneman's _Thinking fast and thinking
slow_ according to which there was only a very slight correlation between the
success of a company and the qualifications of a CEO?

Don't get me wrong, CEOs have my uttermost respect and I don't claim that it's
an easy job. I just wanted to point out that there are reasons for believing
(at least the possibility) that from the point of view of a realistic
assessment the choice of a leader and his or her personality, qualifications
and ambitions do not have much to do with the performance of a company and
that the many apparent examples to the contrary are mostly based on selection
bias and some biases towards oneself such as regarding one's own success more
as an achievement rather than chance as those of others, estimating your own
social status higher than those of others, believing your less biased than
others, etc.

Maybe the best qualification for leadership is being at the right place at the
right time, and nobody else really wants to do it?

If that sounds too negative, let me stress again that I think CEOs and people
in certain kinds of leadership positions often (though not always) do some
difficult work that I generally respect. I just don't buy the claim that the
successful ones are little geniuses. A decent amount of intelligence
(smartness), some generic business knowledge and being good with social
relations seem to suffice.

------
Cyranix
RE: "Clarity of Thought and Communication" — I have worked at a couple of
places that put a lot of effort into internal communications, selling
employees on upcoming product changes they'll be working on, but failed to
acknowledge the existing significant problems that everyone saw and that were
repeatedly punted on. Being able to give a slick pitch is not sufficient for
this leadership criterion; the narrative must be "credible" (as mentioned
rather briefly in the article). Is it just me, or do other people find
themselves frustrated at internal messaging that is self-consistent but not
grounded in reality?

~~~
harryh
I would say that a leader who doesn't have a credible plan has failed to have
clarity of thought because if they did they would have seen that the plan
wasn't credible in the first place.

------
unabst
Two words that weren't repeated enough in this essay, especially one with a
focus on trust.

1\. EMPATHY

Great leaders have empathy towards their customers, their employees, and above
all, to their cause, which is what is contagious.

This is an emotional connection that garners an emotional response. The person
that initiates the connection is leading. The person responding is following.
When this pattern repeats itself, it strengthens the form and function of the
relationship.

2\. RESPONSIBILITY

Taking responsibility is not to be confused with taking blame, because they
are opposites.

Responsibility is taken before the mistake, and doesn't go away after the
mistake. When the mistake happens, you apologize, then fix it, because you're
still responsible. Blame is only taken after the mistake. It ends with an
apology or a legal defense, possibly an acceptance of punishment, and
afterwards we forget it all happened. One is progressive. The other is
regressive.

There was also one word that wasn't even mentioned.

3\. PROMISES

A leader makes promises, and delivers on them, until everyone succeeds. They
make promises to clients, to customers, to partners, to investors, and to
employees.

You cannot be a liar and keep promises. You cannot be incompetent and keep
promises. You cannot make excuses and keep promises. You have to be aware,
proactive, and capable to even know which promises to make.

And with every promise you keep, you've just given everyone another excuse to
trust you, depend on you, and follow you.

In a nutshell, if they can promise to be responsible for delivering on a cause
they deeply believe in, they're a leader.

------
Bahamut
For leadership principles & qualities, I am biased towards the list that the
Marine Corps has put out:
[http://www.tcsnc.org/cms/lib010/NC01910389/Centricity/Domain...](http://www.tcsnc.org/cms/lib010/NC01910389/Centricity/Domain/592/Leadership%20Principles%20and%20Traits.pdf)
.

The Marine Corps may not be a paragon in efficiency in some ways, but I have
found that these qualities hold strikingly well for good leaders in the
civilian world as well.

------
curiouslurker
Great read but did Steve Jobs really have personal integrity? He was famously
double faced, manipulative and as petulant and petty as a child, often
settling personal scores with business decisions.

~~~
calinet6
No, because personal integrity is a fairly unimportant concept to leadership,
besides being a made-up trait that has almost no meaning.

Leadership is about the ability to understand and manipulate reality. To do
that, you need to know about systems, psychology, variation, and knowledge.
None of the rest matters. People didn't have to like Jobs, nor even look to
him for integrity. Rather they trusted him because he was effective at moving
a whole organizational system in one direction toward an incredible result.

It's not integrity that matters—but reality. Are you bringing the company,
through your model of reality, closer to a result? If not, your model is
wrong, not your personality.

~~~
edshiro
Why is this downvoted? It brings a very interesting (maybe controversial for
some) perspective on leadership.

We should ask ourselves if people who we perceive as leaders are indeed
capable of and actively manipulating reality?

I'd like calinet6 to elabore a lot more on his/her points.

~~~
calinet6
Thanks. It's difficult to maintain composure in the face of almost comical
wrongness throughout the business world, and saying things like that tends to
get you shunned. My fault, I need to improve my tact.

I wrote more about it here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13441946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13441946)

Basically, the Pixar crew followed W. Edwards Deming's model of organizations,
which is one fairly accurate and useful model. By doing that they were able to
bring all the pieces together and lead. Heck, Catmull even wrote a book about
it, detailing how he thought about managing and leading a company that works
for creative minds. But I guess the important part is his integrity and hiring
abilities. :)

------
pjmorris
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done,
his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

\- Lao Tzu quote opening 'Becoming a Technical Leader' by Jerry Weinberg

~~~
neltnerb
I think this quote has one particularly important implication (among many): A
major mismatch between responsibility and authority is a huge morale killer.
If you have to constantly ask for permission, you will feel much less
personally invested in success because you don't feel like it was your doing.

------
Macsenour
Being a boss and being a leader are two very different things.

That may seem obvious to those that understand it, those that don't will think
I'm nuts. As a scrum master I have been a leader at every company where I have
worked. I have never had anyone report to me in those same companies, aka not
a boss.

~~~
bbarn
I usually don't consider scrum masters leaders. Facilitators of process, and
reporting are the two biggest things they are responsible for usually.

No offense to your personal positions though, I know many places confuse the
term with project manager too.

~~~
Macsenour
I wasn't a Project Manager at all. Scrum Masters need to enforce the team
rules and do so without being a boss. If they aren't leaders, if they aren't
coaches, you're not getting as much out of your Scrum Masters as you can.

------
treenyc
Before we can measure leadership. Maybe we ought to first figure out what we
mean by leadership.

Often there has being a mix up between leadership, management, and a bunch of
other stuff that has nothing to do with leadership.

If people are interested in how and leadership is effectively exercised and
what it is. Take a look at this paper:
[https://ssrn.com/abstract=1392406](https://ssrn.com/abstract=1392406)

------
ktRolster
There's kind of a difference between a manager and a leader.

Manager - Makes sure things get done. If someone quits, finds a replacement,
etc. We should all be managers of ourselves.

Leader - A person that employees are willing to follow. Makes the group into a
team, working together. Actually cares about the members in his team, protects
and defends them. Fights to get them raises, etc.

~~~
qznc
I remember a nice analogy:

The workers are cutting down trees. The managers make sure the saws are sharp
and the workers do a good job. The leader climbs up a tree and shouts "We are
cutting down the wrong forest!".

------
zzalpha
All the qualities they identify, here, are, in my mind, absolutely necessary
(though not sufficient) for someone to be a good leader.

But, despite the title of the article, none of them are objectively
quantifiable.

~~~
anbende
Agreed, constructs like integrity and commitment are notoriously abstract and
hard to rigorously define, let alone quantify.

If one truly wants to quantify leadership, one would need an operational
definition that is concrete. "Leadership" is probably too nebulous a term, so
we'd need to break it down. I'd suggest that one goes after the parts that are
the most quantifiable: employee morale, productivity, confidence in said
leader. Company culture might be quantifiable (does it have a clear one, is it
intentional?)

------
visarga
Optimize for more than immediate profits. Don't consider themselves detached
from common population, and act in the interest of the greater good. It's a
case of game theory - we need to cooperate even at the cost of a personal loss
for the greater good, otherwise we all lose.

~~~
Nomentatus
You're quite sure it isn't a Prisoner's Dilemma, instead? Ever?

------
6stringmerc
Leadership can be measured by simply stripping away all external factors that
could distort the ability to quantify the Individual Leadership Quotient. A
few such elements would include, but are not limited to: A) Talent and
Aptitude of Followers, B) Macro Economic Conditions, C) Luck, D) The
Weather...basically I think the notion of Leadership is very elastic and, more
often than not, highly circumstantial.

What is good Leadership for a bunch of grunts storming a beach in combat isn't
objectively comparable to good Leadership for a bunch of teenagers in a
classroom environment. There are some "Characteristics" I think that can be
described and discussed as a useful musing on the concept, but it has to be
qualitative not quantitative from my perspective.

------
fuzzfactor
Good article by someone who is obviously well-informed on concentrated
startups, and whose efforts I can easily respect.

I agree that these are some of the universal features that have always
functioned best when combined they yield the trust that is so essential.

Plus some of the best leaders will actually earn enough respect to exceed that
which would be expected by their position alone, earning every bit of it,
rather than imposing it from above (from a naturally lower ceiling).

In most cultures, it does seem, that situations will always arise where better
leadership is needed in ways that can not be measured.

Sometimes only a type of natural leadership will do, the kind that can not be
acquired. Interestingly, this can also be the kind that does not fade even
during periods without a team to lead.

And, some of the time when it really counts most, the need to recognize the
optimum or required type of leadership will not be met without defying metrics
completely.

So I then ask the question "Why would I want to measure leadership?"
qualitatively or quantitatively - in some way other than based on my own
abilities and intuition developed over a long lifetime of influence by those
who have gained the most respect for their superior leadership

And I get the expert answer; "In a startup culture that is obsessed with
management by metrics".

------
rebootthesystem
Well, there are others factors at play today. Here are a couple of videos that
discuss the general topic:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xYCy2eft8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xYCy2eft8)

I have seen and continue to see some of the behaviors described in these two
videos and it is deeply disturbing.

Attempting to lead people with deep social challenges is an exercise in
frustration and futility. Leadership, in this context, is a very different
thing than in what I'll call more traditional settings. It almost has to be
reduced to appeasement and coddling. Latte's and ice cream.

We have a generation of adults who behave as petulant children half their age
did in prior generations. Except they are in a 25 year old body. Some of these
25 year olds today would be slapped out of the building by 25 year olds a
generation or two ago. They are weak, oversensitive, self-serving, entitled,
delicate and disconnected from reality.

This is how you end-up with some of the crazy stuff coming out of outfits like
Facebook and Google. They are completely devoid of real world social and
business skills yet interact and affect the personal and business lives of
millions.

One example that comes to mind are account suspensions and cancellations
without even a shadow of customer care or service offered. If you can't swipe
or click a problem away the option to actually engage with a real human being
and exercise the ability to resolve problems simply isn't there.

How do you lead these people? Well, first they have to grow up. I suspect that
will happen once they get to 35 or 40 years of age and finally understand
reality. What will the consequences of such dysfunction be a few decades from
now? Not sure.

------
ImTalking
I think you can overcomplicate this question but a leader is someone that,
over time, people follow. Why they follow is up to the individual.

Gandhi was a leader, but then conversely, Hitler was also a leader. There is
no morality in leadership, but I would say a common trait would be charisma.

------
laurex
These all seem like good things in a leader, but it does miss a vital quality,
which is being able to guide those around the leader to perform at an elevated
level, usually because the leader has the ability to both convey the
importance of the mission and to be a good "whisperer," i.e. someone who
listens to their team, understands what makes them tick, and supports them in
performing at their best.

------
treenyc
Hmm, do we distinguish leadership from management?

------
mempko
A leader is not a position, but a role anyone can play at any given time.

~~~
qznc
Yes, a very important aspect. You even have to lead your manager/boss
sometimes.

------
known
AKA
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

------
perseusprime11
Here's my short list:

1\. Listen to your people and look after them. 2\. Delegate work because your
people can do it better than you. 3\. Make sure your team is working on the
right things

------
calinet6
Having integrity, being able to judge people, and being a smart thinker?
That's how you measure the leaders of an organization which was heavily
influenced by the management principles of W. Edwards Deming? Have you even
read Creativity Inc? Ed Catmull himself said, "As we struggled to get Pixar
off the ground, Deming’s work was like a beacon that lit my way."

Get a used copy of this book and read it cover to cover:
[https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Handbook-Making-Things-
Gettin...](https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Handbook-Making-Things-
Getting/dp/0070580286)

Chapter 2: The New Leadership Competencies:

\- Competency 1: The Ability to Think in Terms of Systems and Knowing How to
Lead Systems

\- Competency 2: The Ability to Understand the Variability of Work in Planning
and Problem Solving

\- Competency 3. Understanding How We Learn, Develop, and Improve; Leading
True Learning and Improvement

\- Competency 4. Understanding People and Why They Behave as They Do

Those sound a tad more concrete and believable, don't they? That's an
understanding of reality that might help you be a better leader to an
organization that actually works. Dismiss the surface-level personality games
and get yourself into the scientific reality of organizations, and you have a
hope of leading one well. There are no missing parts—the whole system is
important. That's the leadership secret.

My bet is that the leaders described in this post are better described by the
above characteristics, and they more reliably predict leadership success, than
any of their individual traits or abilities. Certainly Ed Catmull, who was
himself a big believer in Deming's way of managing companies, fits that model,
and Steve Jobs was heavily influenced by Deming and Juran in creating a system
able to produce extraordinary quality. In fact, the whole Pixar team this post
is about was more heavily influenced by Deming's concepts than any trite
personality fluke, yet that influence is entirely ignored here.

This is forgivable: it's attribution bias. We instinctually want to attribute
to the greatness of the individual that which was actually more nuanced, the
outside factor in this case being a great body of knowledge about management
and leadership that led them to be extraordinary.

Now you know. Read Peter Scholtes' Leader's Handbook, read Creativity Inc.,
and keep thinking about it. There's way more to it than just having integrity,
being able to judge people, and being a smart thinker. If excelling at those
were all it took, we'd be up to our necks in extraordinary leaders. Must be
something else, then.

------
kogus
Proof is in the pudding. Measure leaders by how many follow them, giving
greater weight to leaders who are followed by other leaders.

------
ThomPete
You don't. You experience it.

------
alfonsodev
Two things:

By the profesional/personal growth of each team member and by the harmony of
the group.

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StreamBright
This is insanely valuable post, helped me a lot with understanding leadership.

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benkitzelman
Look behind them and see who is following (following.... not just obeying)

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losteverything
Getting people to do things they don't want to do.

I believe from Jack Welch

~~~
whalesalad
This is manipulation. Leadership is inspiring people to believe what you
believe so that they motivate themselves to fight alongside you.

~~~
Godel_unicode
They didn't want to do it, they were motivated by good leadership, now they do
it. See how that's not different than what OP said?

~~~
r00fus
Because one is scalable (using motivation) and the other (directive) is not.

You simply can't pretend that "getting someone to do what they don't want to
do" is motivation unless there is some changing of heart/mind there - now
that's the leadership part.

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ajmarsh
By the output of the employees that are lead/managed?

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z3t4
How many people that follow him/her _literally_

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imh
I'm sad not to see an emphasis on giving a shit about the lives of those
people you're leading. Personal development, career development, family, fun,
etc. These are all hugely important to people outside of whatever widgets they
are contributing to. A good leader should care about helping the people they
lead achieve their goals, and not just in the sense of finding people who are
willing to pretend their goals align with the widgets.

~~~
harryh
Would you rate this attribute higher than the 4 listed (clarity, judgement,
integrity & trust)?

I, personally, would not.

And honestly, when I think back to the best leaders I have worked with they
didn't necessarily have an enormous focus on the sort of individual
development that you talk about. They were focused on the mission. To the
extent that individual development furthered the mission it was vital, but the
mission was always #1.

Having the clarity of thought to recognize this was clearly helpful to them.

~~~
imh
I would put it at number 1, to be completely honest. My life goal isn't to
optimize widgets, it's to be happy. That's number 1. Widgets happen to further
that goal. If I'm responsible for other people's livelihoods, that's a really
important responsibility. That doesn't mean to override business decisions,
because better business should help us all, but you shouldn't lose sight of
the original goal or how significant the responsibility is.

~~~
pc86
I'd rather have a trustworthy, honest (integrity), and fair (judgment) boss
that doesn't give a shit about my happiness than one who wants me to be happy
but will lie or play office politics.

~~~
IanCal
Would you be happy working for someone who lies and plays office politics? If
not, doesn't that rather prove the point?

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js8
With a ruler.

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sbierwagen

      It is based on observations I made when working closely 
      with four leaders that I consider extraordinary: Ed 
      Catmull (Pixar’s founder), Steve Jobs (Pixar’s CEO), John 
      Lasseter (Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer), and Bob Iger 
      (Disney’s CEO).
    

All four of these guys were involved in wage-fixing, which cost their
companies $415 million. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

So, "extraordinary" in the sense of being extraordinarily unprofitable.

~~~
johnrob
The value of the labor managed by those leaders was over 100X greater than
$415 million. Unprofitable is not the right term here (something ethical
instead?).

~~~
sbierwagen
That's irrelevant.

The question is if the money those companies saved by illegally depressing
wages was _greater_ than the $415 million cost of the settlement, plus the bad
press of the criminal investigation by the DOJ.

~~~
nl
No, it is completely relevant: ethics do have a place in leadership.

I don't think it is as clear cut as this comment makes out. What they did was
come to an illegal agreement not to poach employees from each other. There are
multiple reasons why that could be good for a company, and I doubt 'reducing
wages' is close to the top of that list.

But ethics are important in leadership - I just think the case here isn't as
simple as it is made out.

~~~
sbierwagen
I was replying to "the value of the labor managed by those leaders was over
100X greater than $415 million", not the second sentence.

~~~
nl
I have no idea what you think is irrelevant.

Both parts of the thing you were replying to seem relevant to me.

