Good morning!
Courage. Creativity. Resilience. For years, self-help books and articles have pegged these traits, among others, as the qualities to look for in workplace leaders. But when behavioral scientist and author Jon Levy researched that accepted wisdom further for his new book, he realized it wasn’t true.
“We’ve been sold this bill by all the major consultancies and all the major university MBA programs that here are these essential skills, and if I want to be a leader, I need to develop myself in all these ways I’m just never going to be able to accomplish,” Levy told me. “What’s really frustrating about that is that it pushes all these people who could be fantastic leaders out.”
What’s the real secret to being a stand-out leader? It’s about the feeling that you trigger in another human being, he said—specifically the feeling that there’s a new and better future.
“The emotional response that we have when we interact with somebody is what causes us to want to follow them,” Levy said. “It’s not based on qualifications or experience or capabilities. They don’t have to even be honest, which is super frustrating, because it’s an emotional response.”
