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Are You a Breakthrough Leader?

Written by: Sandy Blaha

Article Overview: Leaders that outperform their industry peers have learnable skills. They encourage loyalty to the company first, which means listening to the dissenting point of view. They are also good at developing and empowering people. They have great skill in resolving disputes and finding win-win solutions.

Are You a Breakthrough Leader?

Recent studies and articles reveal that there are a few common characteristics that true leaders share. Read on to see if you and your team members possess some of these critical success factors.

For starters, leaders of companies that outperform their industry peers create an environment where everyone understands the corporate strategy and can identify strategic opportunities as they arise. Breakthrough leaders are concerned with building an organization where everybody is loyal to the company first. But a key trait of this “company first” mentality includes the freedom for executives to speak out and disagree as long as it supports the company’s success.

Breakthrough leaders are also successful because they are able to get out of the way of employees. They understand that the company is not about them. They set ego aside for the greater good of the firm. What that means is that they support the maverick’s views, paying more attention to what employees say is screwed up than being insulted by those comments. These leaders really want best thinking from their employees.

These leaders and their respective companies are not just great at hiring people. They are good at developing good people as well. They engage in rigorous employee training. As managers, they are good at settling disputes in creative ways.

Further, breakthrough leaders look outside the company for good ideas, including the development of a strong board of directors with valued business advisors not associated with the company.

These are just a few of the common characteristics of breakthrough leaders.

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Article Tags: board of directors, breakthrough, business advisors, corporate strategy, critical success factors, ego, freedom, industry peers, mentality, respective companies, starters, team members, true leaders



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