Should You Be A Leader? Part 1 Of 2.

Our friend Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is out in Fast Company with a new piece asking you to think about managing your career. Topic: should you be a leader? 

A lot of people go into a leadership role because it was their turn, or they are the best individual contributor, or they were the best project team lead last quarter -- something like that. Maybe they are the boss' niece or nephew, or went to the same 'elite' university. Thess suboptimal approaches to selecting leaders happen because most organizations are reluctant to measure leadership directly or because the CEO wants the nephew/niece in that role. 

(Pause: if you are responsible for assessing and selecting leaders, there are sciences for that which we at Pythia Cyber can help you manage.)

The decision you need to make about whether to move into leadership is so important that we will have two posts about it.

Part 1

Let's do some self-reflection. Quoting Tomas at length: 

The real problem is not the enthusiasm for leadership, but that people are bad at evaluating their own leadership potential. Many confuse ambition with aptitude, confidence with competence, or popularity with effectiveness. Fortunately, science has given us some reliable markers. Leadership is not mystical. It can be assessed. And while there is no perfect recipe, there are 10 questions you should ask yourself if you are considering the move from individual contributor to leader of others. Think of this as a checklist, not a guarantee of success, but a necessary starting point.

Tomas' self-reflection checklist

1. Do you have technical expertise?
2. Are you a fast learner?
3. Are you curious?
4. Do you have integrity?
5. Do you have humility?
6. Are you ambitious?
7. Do you have people skills?
8. Can you tame your dark side? (i.e. can you manage yourself) 
9. Can you inspire others?
10. Are you coachable?

Take A Beat

BEFORE you roll on and answer each question in the affirmative, think carefully and imagine you answering each question one at a time with a straight face for your (human) partner.

In the next post we will review these questions and help you make some decisions. We will also warn you, and your leadership, that there is no free lunch, as the economists say.

See you next time.

In the interim you can always contact us for a confidential discussion about this question: should you be a leader?