Successful Execs: Lions or Lambs?

A coaching group I belong to was going to discuss a Wall Street Journal article by George Anders yesterday about the leadership skills that are really important for success, but I couldn't make the conference call, so I thought I'd touch on the topic. A study out of the U of Chicago, led by finance and entrepreneurship professor Steven Kaplan, concluded that some soft skills weren't as "pivotal" in determining success as some harder skills. According to the study, "the traits that matter are persistence, attention to detail, efficiency, analytical skills and setting high standards, and the skills that don't count as much are strong oral communication, teamwork, flexibility, enthusiasm and listening skills." You can read the article to find out more about the research methodology and decide for yourself what you think about the approach. My concern is that this particular research can be misread. A balance of both hard and soft skills are needed in order to be truly effective. You can have great analytical skills and be extremely efficient, but if you can't communicate well and can't build good teams you won't be as successful as you could otherwise be. How one defines and measures success is also critical in determining what skills are critical. So we need to be careful about how we use and interpret research findings and make sure we apply them correctly.

Leadership & Perfection

Welcome to my first blog! I'm going to write about issues that I encounter with my clients with the intent of giving you some things to think about and I'm interested in hearing your comments. In coaching, we ask people about their beliefs because beliefs form the basis for actions and in coaching we're trying to help people perform and behave in ways that are going to help them achieve their goals. Just recently, three highly successful clients talked about their beliefs about perfection in three different ways. The first doesn't believe perfection is attainable but believes it's imperative to strive for it. The second, who faced a disability early in life, learned through experience that not being perfect doesn't get in the way of succeeding and believes one should "never be a perfectionist." The third used to believe in striving for perfection until she had two kids. Now she believes in "being good enough." When she's trying to determine whether to work two more hours on something, she'll ask herself: "Is what I have good enough to have the conversation I need with my client?" If it's not good enough to engage the client in the right way she knows she needs to work on it more. Being able to make the right distinction about when something has the necessary quality to achieve your goals is key. Successful leaders make good distinctions.