Leader's Insight: Spotting New Leaders (Part I)

The most gifted athletes rarely make good coaches. The best violinist will not necessarily make the best conductor. Nor will the best teacher necessarily make the best head of the department.

So it’s critical to distinguish between the skill of performance and the skill of leading the performance, two entirely different skills.

It’s also important to determine whether a person is capable of learning leadership. The natural leader will stand out. The trick is identifying those who are capable of learning leadership over time.

Here are several traits to help identify whether someone is capable of learning to lead.

1. Do I see a constructive spirit of discontent? Some people would call this criticism, but there’s a big difference in being constructively discontent and being critical. If somebody says, “There’s got to be a better way to do this,” I see if there’s leadership potential by asking, “Have you ever thought about what that better way might be?”

If he says no, he is being critical, not constructive.

But if he says yes, he’s challenged by a constructive spirit of discontent. That’s the unscratchable itch. It is always in the leader.

People locked in the status quo are not leaders. I ask of a potential leader, Does this person believe there is always a better way to do something?

2. Do they offer practical ideas? Highly original people are often not good leaders because they are unable to judge their output; they need somebody else to say, “This will work” or “This won’t.”

Brainstorming is not a particularly helpful practice in leadership, because ideas need to stay practical. Not everybody with practical ideas is a leader, of course, but leaders seem to be able to identify which ideas are practical and which aren’t.

3. Is anybody listening? Potential leaders have a “holding court” quality about them. When they speak, people listen. Other people may talk a great deal, but nobody listens to them. They’re making a speech; they’re not giving leadership. I take notice of people to whom others listen.

When I was in business, I took note of any worker who was superintendent of a Sunday school or a deacon or a Scout leader. In those settings, people were probably listening to him. If he showed leadership outside of the job, I wanted to find out if he had some leadership potential on the job.

4. Does anyone respect them? Peer respect doesn’t reveal ability, but it can show character and personality. Trammell Crow, one of the world’s most successful real estate brokers, said that he looks for people whose associates want them to succeed. He said, “It’s tough enough to succeed when everybody wants you to succeed. People who don’t want you to succeed are like weights in your running shoes.”

Maxey Jarmen used to say, “It isn’t important that people like you. It’s important that they respect you. They may like you but not follow you. If they respect you, they’ll follow you, even if perhaps they don’t like you.”

I also look at the family of a potential leader. If respect isn’t there, that’s also visible. At a church-growth conference, a well-dressed preacher approached me after I had spoken. A few steps behind him trailed his wife. He said, his chest swelling, “How would you like to come to my church and speak to a thousand people Sunday night?”

I couldn’t resist saying, “I’ve given up speaking to smaller groups.”

His wife’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. Her body language revealed what she thought of her husband’s egotism. The family’s feelings toward someone reveal much about his or her potential to lead.

Look for more next week in part two. Fred Smith is a business executive living in Dallas, Texas, and a consulting editor to Leadership.

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