Writing about Life in the digital age

For the past 16 years, we've studied the background of incoming CEOs at the world's largest 2,500 public companies as part of the annual Strategy& CEO Success study. Take this quiz to assess your immediate chances, based on the data we've collected, of becoming a chief executive in your chosen industry.

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What makes a great leader? Although the core ingredients of leadership are universal (good judgment, integrity, and people skills), the full recipe for successful leadership requires culture-specific condiments. The main reason for this is that cultures differ in their implicit theories of leadership, the lay beliefs about the qualities that individuals need to display to be considered leaders. Depending on the cultural context, your typical style and behavioral tendencies may be an asset or a weakness. In other words, good leadership is largely personality in the right place.

Research has shown that leaders’ decision making, communication style, and dark-side tendencies are influenced by the geographical region in which they operate. Below we review six major leadership types that illustrate some of these findings.

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In my work as a leadership trainer and a career success coach for women over 11 years, it’s become abundantly clear that the quality of one’s decision-making is not only a critical factor in her professional success and impact, but also reflects a wide range of influences that we’re typically unaware of, including core values, internal preferences, societal influences, social abilities, cultural training, neurobiology, comfort with authority and power, and much more.

To learn more about decision-making in general, and key differences between the way men and women make decisions in particular, I asked Dr. Therese Huston to share her insights. Therese was the founding director of what is now the Center for Faculty Development at Seattle University and has spent the past fifteen years helping smart people make better decisions. She has written for the New York Times and Harvard Business Review, and her first book, Teaching What You Don't Know, was published by Harvard University Press. Her current book How Women Decide: What's True, What's Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best Choices “pries open” stereotypes about women’s decision-making and serves as an authoritative guide to help women navigate the workplace and their everyday life with greater success and impact.

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When we think of great leaders, certain characteristics come to mind: They have confidence in their abilities and conviction in their beliefs. They “trust their gut,” “stay the course,” and “prove others wrong.” They aren’t “pushovers,” and they certainly don’t “flip-flop.” But this archetype is terribly outdated. Having spent three years studying many of the world’s most successful leaders for my new book, Persuadable, I’ve learned one surprising thing they have in common: a willingness to be persuaded.

Alan Mulally, the vaunted CEO who saved Ford Motor Company, is, for example, exceptionally skeptical of his own opinions. Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful hedge fund managers, insists that his team ruthlessly second-guess his thinking. Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, seeks out information that might disprove her beliefs about the world and herself. In our increasingly complex world, these leaders have realized that the ability to consider emerging evidence and change their minds accordingly provides extraordinary advantages.

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