America’s Best Leaders - the Three Skills

One year ago, US News & World Report magazine listed their picks for “America’s Best Leaders 2007″ .    Included were some folks you may have heard of, and perhaps some you have not.  Here are a few from that list:

Nancy Pelosi (The first woman speaker of the US House of Representatives)

Fred Krupp (President of the nonprofit group, Environmental Defense)

Pat Summitt (Head coach of the University of Tennesee womens’ basketball team)

Harold Varmus (Scientist, Nobel laureate, President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center)

Kenneth Chenault (CEO, American Express Co.)

As I read through the bios and accolades of each leader, three common threads began to emerge ~ the approach and skillset that set these leaders apart:

1.  These leaders were consumate collaborators.  Being a collaborator in itself would not have stood out for me, except - these leaders partnered with the unlikely.   They sought out and collaborated with people who could have been seen as their natural enemies, or at least people who wound not have obviously benefitted them in old paradigms. 

2.  When others said ‘it’ couldn’t be done, and wound not even try - these leaders did it anyway… whatever their ‘it’ was.  In the face of no-agreement, and in the face of people actively working against them, they moved ahead believing in themselves and in their people to accomplish feats beyond what anyone could have imagined.

3.  They are all masters of Self-Reflection.  When their businesses or organizations were facing crisis or challenge, the first thing they did was look in the Mirror to ask themselves how THEY needed to grow and change first.  They were HUMBLE enough to ask themselves, what do I need to learn to lead people forward.  

I have spent 2008 looking for more Leaders with these special qualities.  It is interesting where they have - and have not - emerged.   Either way, it was a useful way to learn as a leader, and as a coach of leaders.  It has informed the questions I ask my clients about their views, their belief in themselves and their people, their willingness to build relationships outside the obvious, and their openness to look in the mirror as a first step.

It is now November of 2008.  Who would you say are the BEST LEADERS of 2008…and what is it about them that we can all learn from?

And, just to make it real … take a look in your own mirror …

Where have You

• Been a consumate Collaborator
• Done it anyway … even if you were told, “you can’t do that”.
• Practiced honest self reflection - faced a challenge and first asked, “What could I have done differently?”