How can you sustain your leadership?

I’ve been helping leaders in the professions for more than 25 years. Sounds like a long time, but it goes fast and is still fascinating. I’ve had cause recently to reflect on what contributes to their success. Particularly how one measures success at the beginning, middle and end phases.

Let’s start with the bedrock.  Success requires qualities of character that flow onto the daily work. The qualities I admire in my clients include:

• The courage to ask the tough questions and seek answers through honest self-awareness.
• Empathy with others based on their humanity, not their status or usefulness.
• Curiosity, including the ability to be ignorant and incompetent as prerequisites for learning.

As a coach, I’m in the privileged position of asking questions that can only be answered if one possesses these qualities. Questions that have no easy answers but that lead to confusion, confronting insights, and then (with luck) new actions. Also, as a coach, I’m acutely aware of my own imperfection when it comes to these qualities. Alas, it’s a long journey to perfection.

How do you rate yourself on these qualities and how do you best develop them?