James M. Kouzes - Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership

All the characteristics receive votes, and therefore each one is important to at least some individuals. What is most evident, however, is that over time, across continents, demographic, and organizational differences, only four have continuously received the majority (over 60 percent) of the preferences. What people most look for and admire in a leader has been constant. If people are going to follow someone willingly, they must believe the individual is honest, competent, inspiring, and forward-looking.

TABLE 1.2 Personal Values, Traits, and Characteristics That People Look for in Their Leaders *

*Note that several synonyms are included in each category.

While the fact that what people look for in their leaders has remained consistent over time, despite the ever-shifting forces affecting economic and social life, there is another profound implication revealed by this data. These survey results have a solid conceptual foundation in what social psychologists and communications experts refer to as “source credibility.”

In assessing the believability of sources of information—whether newscasters, salespeople, physicians, or priests; whether business executives, military officers, politicians, or civic leaders—researchers typically evaluate them on their perceived trustworthiness, expertise, and dynamism. The more highly people are rated on these three dimensions the more credible they are perceived as sources of information. 5

Notice how remarkably similar these three characteristics are to the essential qualities people want from their leaders—honest, competent, and inspiring—three of the top four items selected in our surveys. Link the theory to this data, and the striking conclusion is that people want to follow leaders who, more than anything, are credible. Credibility is the foundation of leadership .People must be able, above all else, to believe in their leaders. To willingly follow them, people must believe that the leaders' word can be trusted, that they are personally passionate and enthusiastic about the work, and that they have the knowledge and skill to lead. 6

If you are going to ask others to follow you to some uncertain future, and if the journey is going to require hardships and possibly sacrifices, then it is imperative that people believe in you. People must be able to believe that your words can be trusted, that you will do what you say, that you are personally excited and enthusiastic about the direction in which the group is headed, and that you have the knowledge and skills to lead.

This all leads to the First Law of Leadership: If people don't believe in the messenger, they won't believe the message .

So what is it that leaders do to build and sustain credibility? What do they do that makes others see them as capable and trustworthy leaders? What are the behaviors that people exhibit that engage and mobilize others to want to follow? What are people actually doing when they are leading and making extraordinary things happen?

To answer these questions, we have been asking people since the early 1980s to tell us what they did when they were at their “personal best” as leaders. We continue to ask this question in our studies and workshops around the world. We have collected thousands of Personal-Best Leadership Experiences—stories about times when individuals report how they excelled at leading, when they were operating at peak performance—from across a wide variety of settings, nationalities, organizations, levels, ages, genders, educational backgrounds, and the like. We've interviewed students in universities, individual contributors at work, middle managers in large and small companies, volunteers in the community, and executives in the C-suite about times when they excelled at leading—when they were doing their best as leaders.

Before finding out what others said, reflect for a moment on something that you would consider your Personal-Best Leadership Experience. This experience could be a time when you emerged as the informal leader, or it could be a time when you were appointed to take on the lead role in a new project. It could be in any functional area, in any type of organization, in a staff or line role. The experience does not need to be in your current organization. It could be in a prior job, a club, a community volunteer setting, a professional organization, a school, a team, a congregation, or even a family setting. It could be a project to improve a product or service, an initiative to bring about a change in your neighborhood, the turnaround of a poorly performing team, the start-up of a new business, jumping in during a crisis, or any other kind of challenge that required leadership.

When we initially analyzed the themes in the thousands of personal-best stories we had collected, two meta-lessons emerged and continue to be front and center. The first lesson we learned is that everyone has a story to tell . Regardless of whom we ask, people are able to identify a time when they did their best as a leader. The specifics of the personal-best stories varied from person to person because the individuals responding to the Personal-Best Leadership Experience Questionnaire were different from one another along a myriad of factors. Despite any individual differences, settings, and circumstances, the second lesson we learned is that the actions and behaviors of leaders when at their best are more similar than they are different . There is a set of common behaviors and actions that people demonstrate when they operate at their personal-best as leaders. These behaviors are universal, and they have stood the test of time and place. 7 Moreover, hundreds of independent scholars have validated this framework in their own studies investigating the central role leadership plays in personal well-being, organizational productivity, and effectiveness. 8 The evidence is clear: exemplary leadership is found in every corner of the globe, every sector of society, every community, every organization, and every type of individual.