Note: the Seven Key Questions for Ambitious, Aspiring Leaders, are presented in the book, Practical Lessons in Leadership by Art Petty and Rich Petro. I’ll explore each question here at Building Better Leaders through individual “Leadership Tip of the Day” posts, offering ideas for investigation and discussion.
The first four questions in this series challenged you to think through issues that are both philosophical and powerfully practical:
- Why do you want to lead?
- Do you understand the true role of a leader?
- Do you understand that the skills that made you successful as an individual contributor are not the skills that will carry you forward?
- Are you prepared to give up your domain expertise as your foundation for results?
If you’ve made it through the investigation of questions 1-4, it’s time for you to focus in on what it takes to be successful as a leader.
5. What do you believe are the skills and personality traits that you need to succeed as a leader?
This question allows the manager and aspiring leader to dig deeper into the role of leadership and to raise awareness of distinct skills and traits essential for leadership success. One potential assignment is to ask the aspiring leader to think about leaders that he/she has admired and to describe what it was about these people that made them positive role models. And as always, I encourage aspiring leaders to sit down with experienced leaders and talk about the role and challenges. Chances are the answers to this question will sound a lot like: patience, fortitude, comfort in coaching and delivering feedback, ability to connect the big picture to day to day realities and so forth.
All of these questions are about building context for the role and life of a leader, and through studying others, the individual can think about their own skills and how they apply or where they need to be strengthened.
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