'Future effect' - the leadership trait that matters

Good leaders know how to cultivate team intelligence and collaboration

- JON LEVY

FOR decades, we've been told that effective leaders share a set of “essential competencies” — empathy, strategic vision, humility, charisma, psychological safety and communication skills.

These ideas get repeated in boardrooms and promised in executive education programmes. But if these competencies were truly essential, then the leaders we most admire should have them. The truth is that they often don't.

Efficacy question

This never made sense to me. In addition to my writing and research, I've spent the past 15 years running a secret dining experience called the Influencers Dinner. We've hosted about 4 000 Olympians, Nobel laureates, executives, astronauts, Grammy-winning artists, Oscar-winning directors and even the occasional prime minister or princess. And sitting across the table from these leaders, what became clear was that while all of them were wildly effective, there was no commonality in their skills. Some were quiet, others loud. Although some thrived on collaboration while others preferred making decisions on their own; each led organisations, movements or creative projects that shaped the world.

Look at the most impactful leaders you know and you see the same thing. Elon Musk is not known for humility or building consensus. Steve Jobs was not exactly famous for psychological safety. Yet both are considered among the most effective leaders of our time. So what explains it?

Psychology of following