What Makes Effective Leaders?

A review of the literature on this subject matter reveals that there are literally hundreds of lists outlining the attributes or characteristics of effective leaders.

 By Willie Van Heerden,WJVH Labour and HR Consultant

Ridderstråle and Nordström in their book Karaoke Capitalism offer a new refreshing approach to this topic.  They list their so-called ten commandments of karaoke leadership, which are:

• Thou shalt not display your feathers to demonstrate your all round brilliance and beauty.
• Thou shalt know the inner-most sanctums of your customers as well as your own backyard
• Thou shalt cast out the rule book of bureaucracy
• Thou shalt giveth out carrots as you would have carrots given to you
• Thou shalt not engage in acts of self-congratulation
• Thou shalt depart toward the door before you are forced or asked to so
• Thou shalt not walk into the wilderness blindly, but open your eyes and those of others
• Thou shalt not count the pennies at every turn
• Thou shalt value values and live them purely and unequivocally every day
• Thou shalt loveth all and all will love you back.

Leadership will always emerge as a hot topic in business, and for very good reasons.

In the Harvard Business Review (January 2004) on this very topic, one of the modern-day influential experts of leadership, Manfred Kets de Vries (from Insead) answers the following question: “What makes a healthy leader?” The following is an extract from his response.

   “…they have the capacity to establish and maintain relationships.  Their lives are in balance, and they can play.  They are creative and inventive and have the capacity to be nonconformist.  These are the things that are fundamental, but I would also hope that we can accept that we need a little madness in our leaders, because I happen to believe that those who accept the madness in themselves may be the healthiest leaders of all.”

He then goes on to quote George Bernard Shaw: “We want a few mad people now.  See where the sane ones have landed us!”