M. Treaster
2023-11-21
I received a prompt, recently, from a leader at my current employer. It went something like this:
Setting aside the drama of the OpenAI situation, one thing that is undoubtedly remarkable is how revered Sam Altman is by his team. For those that haven't seen, 735 of 770 OpenAI employees signed a letter saying they'd leave and follow Sam if he's not reinstated. It's really got me thinking:
What traits create a leader that is respected and followed?
How can we continue to improve and grow as a leaders?
To which I wrote these notes in response:
Values
Do my values align with the leader's values? The more they diverge, the more cognitive dissonance I incur in exerting myself every day in support of the leader's vision.
Tied in with this: What is the leader's true mission? Not "what is the mission statement of the company?" but what do the leader's actions demonstrate they are actually trying to achieve? Hopefully these are the same, but so often in corporate America, they are not.
Vision
What does it look like to execute on the mission? Is the leader's vision compelling? Do I believe in it? Do I believe it can be realized, or can the leader convince me of that?
Competence / Effectiveness / Inspiration
Is the leader effective at motivating the team to execute on the vision? Is their method one of uplifting and inspiring people, or is it rather one of pushing people down, punishment, or cracking the whip?
Connection / Empathy
Do I feel like we're in this together with the leader? Or is it an us-and-them relationship? Are they approachable? Are we equals with differing skillsets? Does the leader deeply appreciates the toil of the workers, or are the workers merely a tool by which the leader executes the vision?
I didn't ponder this topic for much time before authoring my response. I'll likely revisit it from time to time, to see how my perspective changes.
What do you value in a leader? What traits create a leader that is respected and followed?