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The Qualities of a Good Leader
During our careers, most of us have worked with both good and bad leaders.
When leadership is good, the results can be phenomenal. Charles A. Coffin, the former CEO of General Electric, could easily have followed in his predecessor Thomas Edison’s footsteps by setting himself up as the indisputable genius of the company and employing thousands of workers to assist him. But Charles Coffin didn’t share Thomas Edison’s ego. He knew that the success of the business relied upon the skills of his employees, so he developed his managers and scientists and empowered them to work on their own. He had the vision to negotiate a patent agreement with Westinghouse Electric to create a duopoly in the electrical manufacturing market, and he had the innovation to build America’s first research laboratory. It’s no wonder that Fortune magazine called Charles A. Coffin the greatest CEO of all time.
When leadership is bad, the results can be disastrous. During his first year as Kodak’s CEO, Kay Whitmore’s hubris and lack of vision cost his company a valuable opportunity to team up with Microsoft and lead the digital photography market. As a result, Kodak went into a steep decline. The company’s share price plummeted, and thousands of highly skilled workers lost their jobs. Fortunately, a lot of those workers found jobs with Kodak’s competitors. The New York Times called it “a reminder…
