The Complete New Manager

24 Raise the Leadership “Tent”

For decades, leadership experts have tried to find the list of distinctive traits that define great leaders. They assumed that each trait stands alone, much like the individually encased coil springs in an expensive mattress. As the advertisements demonstrate, if a bowling ball is dropped on one coil over here, the cup of water on the coil over there will not spill a drop. This metaphor suggests that leadership skills are solitary and independent, not intertwined, as we believe they are.

A more accurate metaphor for understanding leadership is a large tent, with the three-dimensional space under the canvas representing leadership effectiveness. The poles in our metaphor represent key “strengths” of the individual ...