Research Suggests These Are the 3 Most Underrated Leadership Habits

By Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Although there is an endless list of leadership habits that differentiate high performers from the rest, some of the most wildly celebrated traits in popular articles rarely move the needle according to science. There is often a direct contradiction between the leadership attributes we celebrate and those that actually contribute to leaders’ success.

Consider humility, which is a wonderful virtue, not just in leaders. While studies do highlight a performance advantage for this leadership habit, the effect of humility is small and plenty of leaders advance their careers through sheer self-promotion, narcissistic hubris, and somehow managing to turn their self-delusional fantasies into a contagious virus. The smarter they think they are, the more probable it is that other people think of them as smart, too.

Authenticity is the leadership habit of always telling it like it is, being truthful to yourself and others, and reducing the gap between what you say and do. While this seems laudable, the reality is that in every organization, a higher proportion of people advance their careers due to their ability to manage impressions, engage in effective impression management, and be inauthentic, particularly if they can fool others into thinking they are actually being genuine.

Then there is charisma, a trait that will catapult leaders to the top—not just of organizations, but also nations—but is purely about style rather than substance. Indeed, picking leaders on charisma is a recipe for ending up with narcissistic sociopaths in charge, as well as excluding the hardworking, altruistic, and talented people who are truly able to deliver value through others, whether they manage or lead.

Some of the most critical leadership habits receive less attention in popular discussion, most notably:

The ability to build a high-performing team

This is not just a useful leadership skill, but the essence of leadership. If you cannot turn a group of people into a high-performing team, you are not functioning as a leader. How you get there is less relevant than whether you get there at all, as leadership styles will vary based on the team, culture, and challenge.  Small-scale studies and large research initiatives show the culture of a team—set by its leader—impacts its performance. 

Systematic evidence suggests that the best leaders can flex between different styles, picking between task-relevant habits and behaviors from their rich repertoire of approaches. This is another example of low authenticity since they don’t fit the stereotype of a standard style or approach implied in most oversimplified leadership analyses.

A strong degree of ambition

Only people dissatisfied with the status quo, with their own achievements, and even with success, can push their teams and organizations toward higher accomplishments. Ambition is rarely discussed because we associate it with its dark side, namely self-centered or selfish status-seeking by power-hungry individuals who put their own interests ahead of others and feel entitled and immune.

However, ambition is also the fundamental fuel that propels leaders to improve the world, driving progress through the effective coordination of collective human action, and enabling those involved to improve their own lives and advance their own ambitions and careers. Indeed, the best leaders are not just ambitious. They can also activate and harness human ambition in others, aligning them with big goals and vision. 

Admirable levels of self-control

We rarely celebrate the leadership habit of self-control. Yet leaders who can control themselves and keep their inner demons and external temptations in check, this is basically the essence of integrity and ethics—especially when leaders are highly ambitious. If you think of the incessant number of high-profile instances in which leaders stand out for their inability to display self-control—from high-level cases of corruption, harassment, sexism, racism, and antisocial behavior in general—it is clear that good leadership is unlikely to happen unless those who are in charge can be in charge of themselves, particularly their toxic tendencies. In other words, if you can’t manage yourself, you shouldn’t manage others.

How to pinpoint a good leader

There are relatively simple ways to predict whether leaders will be good at building teams, exercising a strong but healthy degree of ambition, and displaying the necessary self-control to behave ethically and morally, irrespective of their level of power, success, and immunity.

For example, science-based personality assessments have accurately predicted these habits in thousands of independent studies for over 100 years. Despite a clear crisis of replication in the social sciences, personality assessments work and in-person interviews, managerial ratings, and CVs are extremely unreliable ways to detect these positive leadership habits. 

Likewise, 360-degree feedback, particularly upward feedback, where leaders are rated by their reports, subordinates, or followers, predicts how leaders will behave, including whether they will be honest and ethical. Unsurprisingly, if employees distrust their boss, their boss is probably corrupt (even when their own boss is unaware of it, or perhaps especially in that case). 

Finally, as AI continues to evolve, and organizations mine more and more data on what leaders do, how they communicate, and how their behaviors impact their teams and organizations, it will be harder and harder for leaders who are inept, unable to turn a group of people into high-performing teams (and more likely to turn a talented team into a group of disengaged and demoralized individuals), and pathologically and selfishly ambitious, to be appointed to leadership roles in the first place.