In one line: Leadership can be split into who a leader is (attributes) and what a leader does (behaviors). The behaviors are learnable, practiced daily, and passed on to the people who follow.
Core idea
Two questions frame the first week: what makes a good leader, and what do good leaders do? The split is useful because the two answers point in different directions.
- Attributes are relatively stable qualities that others recognize and trust, such as integrity, empathy, determination, judgment and technical credibility.
- Behaviors are observable actions: listening, setting direction, coaching, following up, taking responsibility when things go wrong.
Attributes explain why people are willing to follow. Behaviors explain whether the work actually gets done. A useful lens from the course readings is that leadership is never just the leader. It emerges from the interaction of the leader, the people being led, and the situation. The same behavior can succeed with one team and fail with another.
How it works
- Influence, not position. A leader moves a group toward a goal it would not reach on its own, through example and trust rather than through orders.
- Behaviors are the teachable part. You cannot install empathy overnight, but you can practice asking before telling, closing the loop, and admitting mistakes.
- Leaders replicate themselves. The most durable leadership behavior is the one people copy, as followers absorb a leader’s way of working and pass it on.
- Myths to drop: that leadership is just common sense, that leaders are born rather than made, and that the only teacher is hard experience.
In practice
Two attributes come up again and again in engineers’ reflections: empathy and integrity. Empathy is rarer than it should be in leadership roles, and it stands out when present. Integrity is visible in small things, such as being the same person in the design review as in the hallway. Both build trust, and trust is what lets a leader ask a team for extra effort.
Questions to ask yourself
- Which leader do I most want to copy, and is it their attributes or their behaviors I admire?
- What behavior would my team say I model, without my telling them?
- Where has a behavior of mine worked with one group and failed with another?
Connections
- Builds on: What Is an Engineer and Bernard M. Gordon’s list of leadership qualities.
- Formalized in: Engineering Leadership Capabilities.
- Situational view: Situational Leadership. Mirror image: Followership.
- Capabilities exercised: Ethical Actions and Integrity, Interpersonal Skills, Trust and Loyalty.