Good morning!
TL;DR
- True leadership success stems from the emotions evoked in others, not just skills.
- Remarkable leaders inspire a sense of a brighter, improved future in their followers.
- Teams with too much talent can underperform due to self-interest and egos.
- "Glue players" are crucial for team connection and function, acting as multipliers.
Bravery. Ingenuity. Toughness. For a long time, self-improvement literature and publications identified these characteristics, and others, as the attributes to seek in those leading at work. However, when behavioral scientist and author Jon Levy investigated this common belief more deeply for his latest book, he discovered it was inaccurate.
“We’ve been sold this bill by all the major consultancies and all the major university MBA programs that here are these essential skills, and if I want to be a leader, I need to develop myself in all these ways I’m just never going to be able to accomplish,” Levy told me. “What’s really frustrating about that is that it pushes all these people who could be fantastic leaders out.”
The true key to being a remarkable leader lies in the emotions you evoke in others, he explained, particularly the sense of a brighter, improved future.
“The emotional response that we have when we interact with somebody is what causes us to want to follow them,” Levy said. “It’s not based on qualifications or experience or capabilities. They don’t have to even be honest, which is super frustrating, because it’s an emotional response.”
Levy delves into this and other insights within his recently releasedTeam Intelligence: How Brilliant Leaders Unlock Collective Genius. True to its title, he also investigated the elements that contribute to the success and downfall of exceptional teams —.
He calls out the “too much talent” problem: when company leaders pack their teams with “superstar” hires. Such hires should be made sparingly, he argues, since teams more than half filled with these ambitious and energetic players tend to massively underperform, his research has found.
“The reason is self-interest and egos,” Levy said. “What you actually need are players called ‘glue’ players that focus on the team connecting and functioning. They work as a multiplier that make everybody else perform at multiple of their normal behavior.”
P.S. Coins2Day’s annual World’s Best Workplaces list was released last week, with Hilton taking the No. 1 spot. For more about the list, and to check out what other companies made the ranks, click here.
Kristin Stoller
Editorial Director, Coins2Day Live Media
[email protected]
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
Eight employees who’ve stayed in one job for decades talk about why they’ve stayed—and the changes they’ve seen in the workplace. Wall Street Journal
Could shift work, pioneered by those in the medical field, solve the problem of women leaving the workforce in droves? New York Times
Companies are calling in internal AI “influencers” or “ambassadors” to help persuade reluctant coworkers to get on board. Bloomberg
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Coins2Day .
Buyout blues. About 600 Paramount Skydance employees took a buyout the company spent $185 million on severance packages rather than having employees return to the office five days weekly. —Sasha Rogelberg
Skills shortageFord CEO Jim Farley mentioned that he's encountering difficulty in hiring for 5,000 vacant mechanic roles, even though a six-figure salary—nearly double the American worker’s median pay. —Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
Immersive interview. The former Coach CEO, regretting his hiring choices, developed a grueling interview strategy, complete with an EQ rating and 80-skill test. —Emma Burleigh