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Learn about different criteria for leaders and leadership.

The demand for a more flexible, agile and light type of organization, in which its members access higher levels of commitment to their objectives, requires new management modalities in the
that new actions are required of directors and managers.

Below I will present different criteria on leaders and leadership held by internationally renowned specialists in the world of management: Peter Drucker, Gary Hamel, Kenichi Ohmae, Tom Peters, Stephen Covey, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ken Blanchard and Peter Senger, as well as specialists from the Brazilian business world.

Organizational climate is linked to leadership, leadership to empowerment, some of the leader's competencies are highlighted and the importance of his words to his subordinates is emphasized.

Some thoughts on the leader and leadership

“First, leaders need to know themselves better, to perceive what they like, what they don’t like, what they do well and what they do wrong. And from there, move on to incorporate new techniques,” observes the aforementioned Sergio Oxer, who also thinks that companies are investing more and more in leadership training.

According to Carlos Renck, president of Carrier's Latin American operations, there are three ways to develop leadership. “The first is to know yourself; the second, to develop the ability to perceive emotions in others, which is conventionally called empathy; and the third, to know how to communicate. The latter is very important, as the leader needs to develop his ability to listen actively, that is, to understand what is being said and what is not being said."

At the World Seminar on Strategy and Leadership (1997) organized in Portugal by Tracy International, through a video conference transmitted to more than 40 countries from the United States, the criteria on leadership and the leader held by highly prominent specialists in the world of management were known. Leadership in the future will be democratic, exercised in a shared manner in all areas of the organization.
levels of the organization. Only in this way can the organization evolve successfully, creating the future.

This is the tone of the interventions of eight great thinkers who discussed strategy, leadership and management. Below we quote some of them:

Peter Drucker states that: “The leader's job is to develop leaders. This is increasingly relevant at a time when many people know more than their boss. The boss must learn to build a team in which specialists take the lead in the areas they are superior in.” But he also points out that: “In crises there is no shared leadership. When the ship is sinking, the captain cannot gather people together to listen to them. He has to give orders.”

That is the secret of shared leadership: knowing in which situations to act as a boss and in which to act as a partner.Gary Hamel points out that: “Every employee has the right to have a say in strategy. Not all of it will be innovative and impactful. But the alternative of five bright spots deciding at the top and communicating down through the organization is no longer valid.

It is not a question of a strategic formulation developed at the top of the organization, but of strategic innovation developed by the entire organization…It is nonsense to say that change must come from the top.
summit. Monarchs never established a republic.”

Regarding teamwork, Kenichi Ohmae says that communication is essential for teamwork. The leader must use it to share the mission and objectives, the results and the rewards. For team chemistry to work, it must have the right mix of capabilities. Referring to Japanese companies, he says that "shared leadership is a rule in the
(Japanese) business success stories.” He also argues that “leaders are the product of circumstances.

Leadership style varies according to time, place, and occasion (TPO).” Similarly, Tom Peters, quoting Lewis Platt of Hewlett-Packard, states that he could not be more truthful when he declared that “what was successful
"in the past will not lead to success in the future." This confirms that new times require new ways of acting.

Stephen Covey defines four roles of the leader in solving dilemmas that may arise in the organization: “Win a personal victory, sacrificing what is important in personal life, the Self; Focus on the principle of trust building and sacrifice the self for the we.

This requires trying to understand people, keeping promises, being honest, kind, loyal to those who are absent, clarifying expectations and knowing how to apologize; Bringing everyone in the company to market, using 360º evaluations, which requires a sacrifice, that of being judged by everyone in the organization; Equating the mission of managers with the mission of employees.

Creating our future is not about waiting for things to happen, it is about reinventing a puzzle that is missing a piece: leadership based on principles that build trust is the missing element in organizations.” Rosabeth Moss Kanter states: for the organization to accompany change, leaders must master seven essential capabilities:

Look beyond your borders to discover what can be different. Leaders are on the path to a pattern of excellence. In their companies there is a permanent dissatisfaction, which is the driving force for the search for better ways of doing things, reducing the distance between what they do and what they could do.

Challenge assumptions.

New leaders seek to discover new paths. Their thinking is like a kaleidoscope: they put the same pieces together in different ways to create new patterns, something innovative.

Vision.

Vision helps overcome difficulties and provides the big picture of where the organization wants to be in the future.

Gather allies.

The importance of forming a coalition of collaborators is
It is obvious and confirmed by research: the organizations that implement ideas most quickly are those that involve, as soon as possible, all the entities that have an interest in the company (employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders). But this aspect is also one of the most neglected by leaders;

Create a team.

The role of the leader is to support a team of enthusiasts, such as
facilitator and not as a coach. He must fight within the organization to obtain space, information and material resources so that the team can develop its work;

Persist and insist.

Change is a difficult task that may initially seem like failure. If you give up when problems mount and resources become scarce, you will fail. But if you persist, you will succeed. At this stage, a coalition of persistent collaborators can play an important role.

Share the merits.

Even if the initial idea was his or her own, the leader must share the credit. People need to know that they are recognized.

Ken Blanchard compares the role of the leader to that of a coach in a football game: “As in a football game, the leader must enthuse the team, applaud its progress towards the goal, encouraging it to score. But without scoring there is no game. Enthusiasm equals mission, sometimes equals remuneration and sometimes equals recognition.”

Peter Senge tells us that leadership is more than vision. “It is the tension created by the distance between the present situation and the dream. Like everything, tension seeks a solution; it is the source of energy that leads to the creation of something that did not exist.”

And that's what leaders do. Leadership is doing something we've never done before to create something that didn't exist. To be an effective leader, you need to know the reality of what's going on in the organization, not be a prisoner of distorted information.

When organizations reinvent themselves, they will be able to have leaders at all levels; the manager will no longer be synonymous with the leader. And this is important to accelerate organizational learning.”

Senge (2001)14 gave a definition of a leader in an interview published in the Portuguese magazine Executive Digest “a leader is a person who participates in the organization by shaping its future, who is able to inspire people around him, to do difficult things and to try new things, it simply means moving forward. That is all it means.

All human beings have the capacity to move forward.

“That means a structure that values all people in the company. It is as simple as that.”