As a regional president for a $5B health system, with over 30 years of senior leadership experience, I believe that the hard skill sets of leadership receive too much attention, at the expense of a more intuitive approach. To be an effective leader, one must master these Top 5 Habits of Leadership:
Reflect – The complexity of most organizations is beyond our routine mental capacity. We must develop a habit of strategic reflection to synthesize the variables and evaluate our success.
Objectify –Fear, stress, and civility influence executive decisions. Leaders must learn to stand outside of the apparent situation when making decisions.
Align – Their peers and employees judge leaders by the extent to which actions and words are aligned.
Learn – Ego can be a suppressor of learning. A leader who depends on the confidence of ego to lead, versus the reality of knowledge, will eventually fail.
Listen – Our inner voice is powerful and often overconfident as an executive. We must temper what we believe we know with the voice of those deeply embedded in the reality of the situation.
Rod Brace, Ph.D.