Four Pillars of Good Leadership

In my work I get the privilege of being exposed to some of the best leadership methods and seeing them tested on a regular basis. Sometimes I see outstanding leaders, sometimes I see marginal leaders, and sometimes I get the rare opportunity to see absolutely abysmal leaders. Lucky me. This has allowed me to come up with four basic pillars that are present in all leaders, but the balance of which divides the good from the bad.

Intelligence
The first of these four pillars is intelligence. The ability to meet challenges with reason and logic is of utmost importance to a leader. With intelligence comes imagination and thoughtfulness that prevents many rash decisions from being made. Intelligence also serves to eliminate wasteful practices and pointless exercises, benefitting the overall organization as well as that leader's subordinates. An intelligent leader knows the craft. They are aware of the ins and outs of their organization and are capable of seeing where and how to improve it.

Passion
While intelligence is important, idle contemplation is a bane to any endeavor. At some point a leader must act, and the force that turns thought into action is passion. Passion is what inspires action, and fuels thought. A passionate leader is able to move mountains when necessary, and revels in the thrill of hard work. Passion is contagious, too. When a leader is passionate about their job it infects those around them and multiplies the efforts of the organization exponentially.

Focus
Unbridled passion, however, can result in a great deal of expended effort with very little result. Focus is needed to ensure that passion and intelligence are being poured into the right venues. This is the one that I struggle with the most as a young leader in my own organization. When everything is a priority then nothing is a priority, and it's rare to actually accomplish much. The ability to focus on a task to completion is a trademark of a high level of leadership in the fast-paced world of the workplace. Multi-tasking is great, but when it results in not accomplishing much at the end of the day it tends to be counter-productive.

Adaptability
The danger of focus is that a leader can become myopic and miss opportunities and challenges that they would have otherwise seen. As such, adaptability is the final pillar of good leadership. Adaptability is the one trait that is cherished above all others in the world of survivability, both of organisms and organizations. "Survival of the fittest" is too short-sighted. "Survival of the most adaptable" is more suited to the creature who wants to make it in a constantly changing world.


As pillars supporting any structure, they must be in balance for the structure to stand. If one of these is too far dominant then it throws the leader out of balance and creates a disparity. There are many intelligent leaders who are slow to act, passionate leaders who fail to think, focused leaders who fail to see critical issues and many highly adaptable leaders who never get anything done because they're chasing the next shiny object. A good leader is one who keeps these four pillars in balance and self-assesses to ensure they are being as effective as possible. At least, that's what I'm trying to do. 

Posted by:Gabriel Thorn