Workplace

"One finger cannot lift a pebble."

This old Hopi Indian saying is a perfect maxim for leaders because it emphasizes the basic fact that leaders can't do much by themselves.

A big problem for most leaders is their natural tendency to focus too much on their own strategies and actions and not enough on how their strategies affect their followers. Even the best-laid and well-implemented leadership plans can fail completely if not followed.

Therefore, as a leader, it is important to pay as much attention to your followers as you do to your strategies. Are your followers moving in the right direction? Are all of you accomplishing your goals? Is the group progressing? Answers to these questions are critical indicators of successful leadership.

Creating a team

Leaders must have a vision and be able to communicate it well. As baseball legend Yogi Berra once said, "If you don't know where you are going, you might not get there." Leaders must know where they want everyone to go and must be able to translate their visions for their followers. And their followers also must believe in their leaders' goals and want to attain them.

However, followers will not buy into a leader's goals without first trusting their leaders and co-workers. Therefore, effective leaders must build camaraderie with their followers. It is not enough to be a visionary decision maker. Leaders also must be great team builders. In a world of repeated interactions, the ability to build a stable team of committed individuals provides leaders with followers who effectively will implement their decisions and attain their visions.

And the word "team" doesn't just mean a person's subordinates. A leader's team should include clients, suppliers and peers. The phrase "we're like a family" should apply to all of a leader's important connections. If someone is outside your "family," you often will have more difficulty connecting and building the trust that is necessary for effective leadership. Knowledge and respect are necessary for building trust among you and your co-workers.

Being challenged

Although it would be easier for you if your team members were happy automata who never questioned your actions, it is important to have a team that challenges you. People don't follow a leader's every whim. And a good leader listens to and learns from his team.

Therefore, in addition to being a visionary decision maker and team builder, a great leader also must be a great negotiator who can communicate his visions and convince his team members particular actions are necessary and worthwhile.

However, he must be willing to relent in the face of a reasonable alternative. Genuinely listening to the ideas of team members and considering their opinions when they challenge you can help you promote communication and evaluate your decisions more carefully. Leaders who have great visions but don't communicate and negotiate well will be leading groups who misunderstand them or are not motivated enough to achieve even their smallest visions.

A successful leader

Vision, team building and negotiation are the essential skills of a great leader. If any of these skills are absent, a leader cannot and will not be consistently effective. But put all these skills together, and success is almost completely ensured. Strategically, it pays for leaders to push themselves to do what is not natural and think of others first. Then, teams and leaders can accomplish extraordinary things.

J. Keith Murnighan is the Harold Hines Jr. professor of risk management at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.