Confidence and certainty are two of the most attractive traits in leaders.

People tend, magnetically, to follow someone who says with authority, “We need to go there!” They may well follow that person off a cliff, but the point is that they’ll readily enough go along for the ride.

That person could be considered a natural leader—someone with confidence and certainty in abundance, which they wield like a scepter. They emerge from the womb asking that doctors adjust the room temperature and the lighting, then go on to micromanage their parents and any others in their orbit.

Along the way, there’s one question these sorts of leaders never tend to ask: “Am I doing this right?”

For them, if they’re doing it, it must be right.

That’s why the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, a consummate natural leader, shunned focus groups. He didn’t say, “Might this iPod or iPad or iPhone that we’re working on be something you need?” No, he told you his product is “insanely great,” and that you’d be insane not to buy one.

By contrast, most people regularly ask, as they go about their business:

• “Is this the right way to do it?”
• “Am I standing in the right place?”
• “Do I look like ridiculous right now?”
• “How will others see me?”

Listen to—and Trust—Your Instincts

If you aspire to be a leader but you lack the innate confidence that seems natural to some people, there’s hope, because you can develop it.

It begins with a conscious effort to listen to your instincts and intuitions. It then requires quieting your tendency to question those instincts.  

There are, thankfully, people who are in the business of helping others to trust their instincts.

Good fitness instructors will remind you to “listen to your body.”  

Good dance instructors will say, “Do the moves in a way that works for you. Put your own personal twist on them.”

Good jazz musicians will say, as Miles Davis did, “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”

Most every parent wants their child to become a leader. So do the child’s teachers. Yet the grown-ups ironically stifle every leadership impulse in children, by conscripting them into lives of unending, dutiful obedience. In a previous generation, this was depicted as youth pushed into factory-like servitude. In our times, it’s more like a frantic sprint from one activity to the next, in the hopes of someday satisfying the faceless admissions committees at selective prep schools and colleges.

Developing a Sense of True North

Some people have strong gyrocompasses and others have strong radars.

Natural leaders tend to have a powerful internal gyrocompass, which guides them to their own personal “true north”—and often pulls followers along in their wake. These are people with an agenda, and they’re not easily distracted from it.

Many other people have sensitive internal radars, which pick up on the feelings and signals of others in the room. Their radars can be so finely tuned that they inevitably get pulled away from their own agendas by the slightest concerns expressed by others. Even if they’re not verbally articulating the question, “Am I doing this right?” their antennae are raised high to pick up any possible answers to it.

A brilliant leader once told me that the ideal leader would have a strong gyrocompass and a sensitive radar. I asked him which he would choose if he could only have one, since few are lucky enough to be blessed with both. He paused and said, “Well, no doubt the gyrocompass. You really can’t be a leader without it.”

Those with effective radars but weak gyrocompasses often make good deputies, assistants or consultants. If they’re content with those roles, all is well. But if they’re not, they have to begin working on their gyrocompass.

They have to uncover their deepest instincts and learn to trust those instincts. And they have to develop clear agendas that aren’t scuttled by the first criticism from a client, colleague or customer.

Confidence and assertiveness breed charisma, which is crucial to making others want to follow. Harvard evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson has noted that this tendency spans species, from wolves to rhesus monkeys to humans.

It leads to a certain “reality distortion field,” a term used by those who knew Steve Jobs, and this is seen with many natural leaders. When they walk into a room, the gravitational field bends toward them.

The good news is that confidence increases with practice, and confidence begets further confidence.

The truth is that many natural leaders would benefit from occasionally asking, “Am I doing this right?” and accepting others’ counsel. But for those others, progress usually begins with asking it less.

 

Forbes