What is Leadership Anyway?

Leadership is a universally and frequently discussed topic of every organization regardless the nature, purpose, size, and structure. The discussions attract a lot of attention and the desire to have a superior leader is most acute especially in times of confusion, uncertainty or crisis.

Vint Cerf (click here to see one of his Youtube appearances), the most recognized father of the Internet and Google’s Chief Internet Evanglist since Sept 2005, once used a cartoon of race to illustrate, in his own humor, what is a leader. He suggested that a leader is someone who sees where people are going and then run the fastest to be ahead of the crowd. Although his remark was aimed at the techy audience, there is a lot of truth to it: a leader needs to be able to see what others don’t and run the fastest (note you don’t have to be the first to see it).

What is leadership anyway? How should we choose our leaders? How could we identify and nurture future leaders? In his April 2007 book “Where have all the leaders gone?” Lee Iacocca offered 9 C’s as critical dimensions of leadership quality. The 9C’s are: Curiosity, Creativity, Communication, Character, Courage, Conviction, Charisma, Competence, Common Sense. As the 2008 presidential race heats up, he also started a Iacocca Meter and invite people to score and evaluate presidential candidates in these 9 dimensions. At a closer examination of the scoreboard that shows the current snapshot of the votes, you will notice that by simple arithmetic average of the 9 scores.

Let us take a closer look of the 9C’s before we score anyone, as they are not of the similar nature and implications as measures. I would consider Curiosity, Creativity, and Competence necessary for any good leaders as they are about the intellectual capacity of a person. Charisma and Communication are good to have as they help move and people more effectively which are important attributes especially for public figures. Courage and Conviction measure the inner strength of an individual. By themselves, they are the most confusing attributes since the words are usually used in positive connotation and yet the eventual results could be very good or very bad. Fortunately, at least one of the C’s - Common sense provides the balance and tells us if the person has a good sense of reality.

The ultimate C though is, in my opinion, Character. Abraham Lincoln had once said “if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” Similarly, Martin Luther King had been quoted to say “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and conveniences, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”. Thus as a test run to calibrate the meter, let us score from 1 to 5, a few well-known leaders about whom we know more and have some impressions with their track records and accomplishments. Below are my scores.

	G.W. Bush	Clinton	Regan	Nixon	Kennedy	Vint Cerf
Curiosity	1	5	3	3	5	5
Creativity	1	5	3	3	5	5
Communication	1	5	5	1	5	5
Character	3	3	3	1	3	5
Courage	3	3	5	3	5	5
Conviction	5	5	5	5	5	5
Charisma	1	5	5	1	5	5
Competence	1	3	3	3	3	5
Common Sense	1	5	3	3	5	5

In closing, good leadership is badly needed everywhere. We all have it in ourselves in some forms or shapes. Leadership is not about title: title does not manufacture leadership, but demonstration of good leadership does often lead to the recognition of a title. Visionary and great leaders are hard to come by though. To reach that level, I would add 3 H’s – Humanity, Humility and Heart on top of the 9C’s.

Talk to you soon!