About 60 percent of businesses lack adequate leadership, according to a 2008 AON Consulting study. Looking at examples of good leaders can help a company identify the characteristics of potential industry leaders. Great leaders come from all walks of life, but many leaders share common traits, such as putting others before themselves and always thinking ahead.
Southwest CEO James Parker
Great business leaders tend to put the customer first and set their company apart from the competition. One great example of customer service and industry leadership occurred right after the September 9/11 attacks. The federal government shut down airlines for several days -- leaving passengers and airline employees stranded. Instead of letting everyone wait it out on their own, Southwest Airlines CEO James Parker encouraged employees to entertain customers, such as taking them to movies or going out for a night of bowling. Also, while other airlines cut their workforce by up to 20 percent, Parker kept all of his employees and created a profit-sharing plan for his workers.
Leadership and Management
Business leadership experts, such as Joe Badaracco of Harvard Business School, tend to draw a line between great managers and great leaders. Managers take care of the day-to-day tasks, such as creating efficient budgets, organizing the business and keeping workers under control. Leaders on the other hand, motivate workers with their charisma and change the way the company does business.
Harvard Business School professor Nitin Nohria cites Winston Churchill as a great leader because he took responsibility for Great Britain's huge military losses in World War I so the country could move forward. Churchill's military recovered from WW I and went on to win World War II. The best business leaders usually have a combination of managerial and leadership skills, according to Deborah Blagg and Susan Young of Harvard Business School.
In a 2003 article, Jim Collins of Fortune Magazine named Charles Coffin -- former CEO of General Electric--the greatest CEO of all time. Coffin essentially created the modern ideology of what a CEO needs to do and how a company should operate. Coffin's predecessor was Thomas Edison -- famed inventor of the light bulb and phonograph among his hundreds of inventions.
Instead of employing thousands of workers to help him like Edison did and competing with his predecessor, Coffin trained scientists and managers to work on their own. As a testament to this ideology, Coffin created America's first research laboratory; Coffin's reign became know as the "Steinmetz Era," in honor of famed GE electrical engineer Charles P. Steinmetz.
Some of the greatest business leaders also cause significant amounts of controversy. For example, Michael Eisner, former CEO of Disney, received backlash during his tenure for employing thousands of laborers in the developing world at salaries much lower than those of American workers. Looking at examples of poor leadership can give a company a good idea of what it does not want in a leader.
Another good example is when CNBC named Martin Sullivan, former CEO of AIG, one of the worst CEOs of all time because of his indifference to AIG's exposure in the subprime mortgage industry that led to AIG's downfall.