Leadership--What Matters Most?

A recently completed study of successful CEOs in business titled "Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?" brought to light some surprising (to me) results.  Steven Kaplan, Mark Klebanov, and Morten Sorenson collected detailed personality assessments of 316 CEOs and measured their companies' performances.  What did they find?

• Strong people skills correlate loosely or not at all with being a good CEO.  For example--
• Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do NOT seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful for-profit companies.
• What mattered was the ability to get things done and organizational skills.  The traits that correlated most powerfully with success in the for-profit world were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours (ouch!).

In other words--warm, flexible, team-oriented and empathetic people are less likely to thrive as CEOs.  Organized, dogged, and anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive as CEOs in the for-profit world.

This work is consistent with other work that has been conducted over the past several years.  In 2001, Jim Collins wrote in his book "Good tor Great" that the best CEOs were not flamboyant visionaries.  Rather, they were humble, diligent and resolute people who found one thing they were really good at and did it over and over again.  Other studies have shown that extroversion, agreeableness, and openness to new experiences did not correlate well with CEO success.  Instead, what mattered was emotional stability and conscientiousness--being dependable, making plans and following through on them.

In the for-profit world (which is different from the non-profit one) seems to want are CEOs that offer clear and resolute direction for their companies.  What these studies suggest is an ideal personality type--humble, diffident, relentless and a bit uni-dimensional.  These are not the most exciting people to be around. But Wall Street likes this type because it results in corporate success.

How, if at all, do these findings transfer to the non-profit or public benefits sector?  That is not clear.  While many Extension groups have been avid readers of "Good to Great" and other business world advice books, it is not clear that the same traits or models work well for the non-profit sector. The goals and measures of success in the non-profit world are different.  While results do matter in the non-profit world, so do people skills.  There is more than the bottom line.

In my view, people skills, the ability to form teams, listening, vision--these are all important skills in the non-profit sector and help define why those who are needed in this field are different from those who pursue careers in the for-profit sector.  The same skills that are needed in the non-profit sector are the skills that define effective parents.  And as we all know, the hallmarks of a successful family can not be reduced to a bottom line number.

Read more at:  http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/steven.kaplan/research/kks.pdf