Doug Noll separates leadership functions from attributes. Functions are what leaders must provide: focus, direction, and psychological safety. Attributes like honesty and integrity matter, but they don't replace delivering those three core things to your team.
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Hi, Doug Noll here, and I want to talk a little bit about the function of leadership. So on Wednesday, I posted a poll here on LinkedIn on my post, and here's the results so far. The question was, in your view, which are the most important functions of leadership? Honesty and integrity, focus, direction, and safety, knowledge, critical thinking, accountability, and results. And you can see that most people clicked on honesty and integrity. Well, this was a trick question because the question asks for functions of leadership, not for attributions of leadership. So the correct answer is focus, direction, and safety. And let me talk about that for a second. So the functions versus attributes is something very often confused in leadership, and I'll explain why this is important in just a moment. But let me explain the difference. So functions are what a leader provides, and a leader fundamentally provides focus to a group, provides direction—where are we going, what are we trying to do—and psychological safety. If a leader doesn't provide focus, direction, and safety, then it's not a leader, and you're going to have a dysfunctional group that may be being managed, but is not going to perform very well. So focus, direction, and safety is what a leader must provide to the group in order for the group to be a high-performing team. Attribution is what a leader is. So many people wrote honesty and integrity, and those are important, but it's not a function. It's not what a leader does. It's what a leader is. And of course you have to cultivate all kinds of characteristics like honesty, integrity, transparency, authenticity, empathy, compassion, the ability to listen, the ability to manage conflict. I mean, there's just dozens and dozens of attributes and skills the leader must master in order to provide focus, direction, and safety. Now, why is this important? Well, if you want to be a great leader, you've got to understand what it is that you're actually providing to a group. What is it the leader really does? What's the difference between being a graphic designer and a software, or a software developer, and being the person that leads a group of graphic designers or a group of software developers. Very, very different functions. And most people don't understand this. They get promoted into a leadership or management position, and they really don't know what it— you have to do in order to be an effective leader. So understanding the difference between attributes and functions is a way for you to focus in on What is it that you have to master in order to be an effective leader in your organization? So I hope this was interesting and explanatory. Of course, if you want to learn more, go to my website, DougNoll.com. I write about leadership, emotional competency, and de-escalation. So thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.
