A "natural leader"

What is a "natural leader"?

I got to thinking about this the other day while considering my two older boys.  They are just kids, and like anybody they are complicated and multi-faceted individuals.  For the sake of this example, I'm going to just treat them as simple stereotypes.

Jack is my older son.  He is naturally charismatic and has a large group of acquaintances and friends.  He charms children and adults with his easy style and effusive character.  Other kids naturally follow his example, want to play games that he devises and generally look to him for leadership.  At the same time, Jack is not very concerned about others.  He is often dismissive of others' feelings.

Ethan is my middle son (I have another, even younger son).  Ethan is very empathetic and quickly identifies the needs and emotional wants of others.  He feels deeply and shows great concern for the development and well-being of other kids (including his brothers).  Ethan does not display the same sort of outward and obvious charm that Jack does, he has his own (very unusual) sense of style and in general is not a "popular" sort of kid.  Other kids don't naturally flock to him, and he has very few acquaintances and just a few close friendships.

So, in this either-or scenario, who is the "natural leader"?  Jack is the one that people naturally want to follow, but Ethan is the one who possesses the emotional intelligence and selfless concern that characterizes great leaders.

The easy answer is to say that neither is really a natural leader, and that a natural leader is someone who possesses both characteristics.  I think that answer is wrong, though.  There is a lot of literature on leadership that seems to indicate that really successful leaders are often not the big keynote, charm-the-audience types, but more of the help-develop-your-people-though-honest-methods types.  We all remember Steve Jobs, but who ever really wanted to work for him?

Update:
I see this thing from time to time and it gets me to thinking:

At first glance it's very heart-warming and embraces diversity and has a cute girl standing akimbo with a soft-focus field and really seems like a great idea!  Except this... "Bossy" is not a leadership skill.  "Bossy" is a completely unnatural leader--bossy is a person who wants others to do what she says to do.  Bossy doesn't imply that others want to follow.  Bossy doesn't imply that you care about what's best for others, or that you're qualified to lead at all.  Bossy just means that you want to lead.

Really makes me wonder about Sheryl Sandberg that she doesn't seem to know the difference.


What do you think?

Metacognition, forecasts and estimating ability

tl;dr: Odds are pretty good that your opinions on everything are worse and more ill-informed than you think they are. Suspend judgment about the ability of others (positive or negative) because it is probably just an echo effect (they're brilliant if they agree with you and stupid if they don't). This is all especially true if you aren't an expert in the field under consideration. Don't apply this logic to others, apply it to yourself first.

Metacognition refers to the act of thinking about thinking. This is the same sort of concept as Freud's superego, or what phenomenologist philosophers call our consciousness. Kahneman might refer to it as "slow thinking".

In general, our brain has two methods for making a decision. By "decision" I mean just about any sort of conclusion about something. There is a fast method that runs ahead and draws its conclusions based on instinct, training, experience and mental shortcuts. The fast method is great for things that we are evolutionarily prepared for and for things where training is effective. Generally training is effective for things that require quick reflexes and that provide immediate, salient feedback. Fast thinking is gut feel and reflexes and is not something we are aware of consciously because it doesn't formulate in language -- it forms in action.

The slow method is what we think of as "thinking". It is logical, it handles new ideas and concepts. It is what we observe as "thought". It presents itself in our language and is shaped by the way our language works. Slow thinking spends a lot of its time confabulating a logical reason why the fast method came up with what it did. A lot of our thought is spent thinking about what we just did and justifying it to ourselves.

This where our ability to forecast comes in. Most of the time, when asked about the future, people immediately have a gut feel. That gut feel is hugely biased (too many forms of bias to go into now). As long as we don't get immediate and obvious feedback that the forecast was wrong, our brain has mechanisms in place to pat itself on the back for another great forecast. Even if the forecast is terrible, if the feedback is subtle or slow, our brain still thinks it did a great job and our metacognition formulates a story to back it up.

Unfortunately, most of the forecasting situations we face in the modern world don't provide immediate and obvious feedback.

This is the reason that we're all bad at estimating our ability. We are best at identifying problems when we have expertise with a subject. The better we are at something, the more capable we are of identifying when we screw it up. Conversely, the worse we are at something, the worse we are at identifying how bad we are. We blithely go along, thinking we're pretty awesome at the stuff we're worst at. Those who are the best at things are also the most aware of their shortcomings.

There are lots of examples of this in the world. I guarantee that Tiger Woods is far more critical of his golf game than a typical weekend duffer. Proof-reading the English language is another great example--if you don't know the rules of grammar very well, then you won't be aware of your errors. Driving is another example where people are notoriously bad at identifying their own skill (except race-car drivers, who are typically very slow drivers on city streets).

So what?

Well, this whole thing applies to business, sure. I think what's really interesting is how much it applies to politics. Look at how many people who know nothing about economics are judging the economic policy pronouncements of the Presidential candidates. Look at how many people who know nothing about police training are hypothesizing about their motives. Look at how many people who know nothing about life experience as a black American are denigrating their perspective. Science would tell us all those people are probably wrong and atribiliously wrong about it because they are even ignorant of their ignorance.

Career Capital - Useful traits

What are the personality traits that are associated with a good employee?  When hiring, what should you look for?

Conversely, we all work for somebody so what are the traits we should develop in ourselves?

I saw this list some place.  It isn't mine, but I can't remember where I found it.  It's a good list:

1. Action-oriented
2. Intelligent
3. Ambitious
4. Autonomous
5. Leadership
6. Cultural fit (personality)
7. Upbeat
8. Confident
9. Successful
10. Honest
11. Detail oriented
12. Modest
13. Hard-working / results-oriented
14. Marketable / presentable
15. passionate

I think one of the most interesting ones on that list is "marketable/presentable".  I know many people who fail to separate their work persona from their personal life persona.  I sometimes struggle with this, as well.  There is a constant battle between being authentic and being marketable.

If your personal life persona is naturally highly-polished, buttoned-down and carefully worded then that's probably fine -- lucky you!  If your natural persona is not highly diplomatic and you aspire to a role that requires careful diplomacy then there's a conflict -- adopt a different work persona or adopt a different career objective or prepare for a pretty frustrating slog.