this question comes up a lot and you know you read articles and they're like Charisma you know I I've known a lot of great leaders who you wouldn't even know they're the leader they like walk with their shoulder against the wall right um so you know those things I I've seen yes and no but the the the few things that I've seen universally about amongst the great leaders I've met number one um and these things number one and number two sort of go together number one is courage number one is courage uh the courage to
speak truth to power the courage to be honest about my own failings my own my own capabilities um the courage to be open about my my failings and my capabilities like these things are excruciating the courage to tell somebody something that you know is going to hurt their feelings like these leadership is an incredibly difficult thing to do um and and courage which then begs the question where does courage come from and I do not believe for one minute that courage is a deep internal fortitude where you dig down deep and the courage courage for
me is social yeah so like I have the courage to jump out of a plane because the parachute on my back the external thing yeah gave me the courage and so you need at least one person in your life professionally or personally to say I believe in you you got this and if everything goes south I'll be I'll still be there with you that'll give you courage number two closely tied is integrity which is to do the right thing and weirdly we all know what the right thing is RA rather than doing the expedient thing
like I can't stand it when companies do unethical things and all the CEOs are dragged in front of Congress and they all say the same thing we broke no laws no you you didn't break a law by raising the price of your essential drug by a thousand perc but it's pretty unethical yeah right like we all know what right is and the law is a lower standard um and so the the the courage to have integrity and integrity driving my courage like those things go go together and the third one I'd say um they're a
student of communication because a huge part of of leadership is the skill of listening and the skill of speaking in a way that allows people uh to not only to feel listening in a way that allows people to feel heard and speaking in a way that people can hear as opposed to triggering people etc etc