What makes a great leader?

I found this short TED talk below by Roselinde Torres relevant for today’s leaders. It was recorded in November 2013 – see if it’s significant for you?

We should always be asking what makes a great leader, particularly ourselves, as it causes us to evaluate the present state of affairs. Have any of the practices we’re using become outdated or is the team obvious to them because there seen as unnecessary? Until we start looking we’re usually not aware of changes happening, as they tend to happen quickly leaders have to be continuing watching.

Roselinde makes some good points about checking who we are spending time with, developing a diverse network of relationships, and being courageous enough to abandon past practices. It is important we are “shaping the future, not reacting to it”, not only for us but especially for our teams. Forward thinking is an important skill, by surrounding ourselves with the right people and having the courage to act shows we can make changes when necessary for the good of the team/organisation.

I think this quote from the video accurately portrays what makes a great leader…

they are women and men who are preparing themselves, not for the comfortable predictability of yesterday, but also for the realities of today and all of those unknown possibilities of tomorrow

Is this what your doing? Is this what I’m doing? It’s up to us how much effort we put into preparing for tomorrow. The danger of disregarding this is the impact on the teams. The best developers usually won’t want to stay in a team that is falling behind and shows no sign of changing for the realities we see in our industry. Having strong teams will be a deciding factor for the success of organisations going forward, it’s the leader’s responsibility to ensure teams have the right mindset for the challenges of tomorrow.