The not-so-secret ingredient needed for effective leadership.
By Pete Mercer
The quality of leadership in organizations across all economic sectors is in a state of crisis. Effective leadership is a necessity for running a company, but it is not easy to find a candidate who can handle all the responsibilities that come with a leadership position. There are certain qualities that leaders need in order to be effective in their roles, whether they are operating as a business leader or a political one.
According to former navy admiral and author Mike Studeman, one of the most important qualities is integrity. People of integrity are honest (especially when it’s easier not to be) and abide by a strict moral code – essential for leadership positions.
In a recent interview with Repertoire Magazine, Studeman discussed his military career, the value of integrity, and the qualities of strong leadership. “Might of the Chain: Forging Leaders of Iron Integrity” covers almost four dozen leadership traits and why they are essential qualities for great leaders.
What leadership should look like
Studeman served his country for 35 years and retired as a two-star navy admiral in 2023. During his time in the navy, he served as a commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, a theater intelligence commander for the entire Indo-Pacific command (about half the Earth), and the theater intelligence director for all of Latin America and Central America.
After retiring, Studeman began working as a national security fellow for MITRE, a federally funded research and development center that “helps government connect with private industry, think tanks, and academia trying to solve issues in defense, cybersecurity, healthcare and other areas.”
His book, “Might of the Chain: Forging Leaders of Iron Integrity”, dives deep into what great leadership looks like and how the overall trust of leadership in the public and private sectors has sunk to a devastating all-time low.
He said, “I looked around and I saw so many examples of poor leadership in the country, and I could not keep my peace. We do leadership the right way in the military – if you’re not a good leader, you’re not going to get promoted and you’re not going to be given more responsibility. It’s a basic thing, like 101. And then you look around the United States and you see political leaders who are violating basic tenets of leadership.”
While conducting research for his book, Studeman found a number troubling statistics, including:
- Four out of five people think we have a leadership crisis in both political and corporate sides of America.
- Four of five people do not have trust in their leaders, regardless of organization.
- Two-thirds of people don’t see anyone they aspire to be in their organization.
- One-third of people don’t trust mass media.
His hope for this book is that readers will have a better understanding of what leadership should look like and inspire them to be more astute and discerning about who they want to represent them in their government and organizations.
Forging iron integrity
This idea of “forging leaders of iron integrity” is integral to Studeman’s philosophy on leadership. He based that phrase on the fact that we are all meant to be doing a lot of “self-forging” of ourselves, submitting ourselves to environments where a lot of sculpting will need to be done. Most people operate and learn the best while under pressure – “forging iron integrity” requires a mindset of continuous, never-ending improvement.
That integrity component is what separates strong, effective leaders from the rest of the pack. But what does integrity really mean? Studeman said, “Integrity has a lot of different meanings – one of them is to be honest, one is to have a moral underpinning. You operate from a moral base. Another definition, which is critical, is that integrity is about uniting, not dividing.”
Studeman argues that integrity allows strong leaders to pursue unity in a world that’s so divided on every little thing. It’s one of the moral pillars of leadership, “fundamentally related back to the golden rule of how you treat people.”
While most of us understand what integrity is, the real question is whether everyone is capable of living with integrity. With the amount of people in positions of leadership who are seemingly lacking in integrity and character, there’s certainly some sort of catch, right?
“I think it can be born and bred,” Studeman argued. “Everyone can have high integrity. It’s both something you might have in your genetic makeup and your upbringing, but it’s also something where you can hone it in a way that makes it better every day.”
Qualities of effective leadership
What qualities do you look for in leadership? This might look a little different for everyone, but there are certain qualities that distinguish leaders from everyone else. For Studeman, effective leadership can be boiled down to four distinct qualities:
- Character – Character is such an important trait that it should be at play in the beginning, middle, and end of your leadership journey. “If your character is right, nothing else matters,” Studeman said. “If your character is wrong, nothing else matters. Character is the genesis point of every way that you’re going to behave, and it is how people are going to attach themselves with you because they can trust you.”
- Authenticity – Authenticity is almost impossible to fake, and many people can spot inauthenticity from a mile away. “You don’t disown yourself to be someone else. You borrow devices, approaches, and techniques that you have seen other great leaders use, but you have to make it your own. This is a true sign of someone who knows exactly who they are deep in their bones.”
- Self-discipline – Self-discipline is an essential ingredient for leadership; without it, it will be difficult to accomplish anything. “The best leaders are ones who remain voracious learners throughout their entire lives – they never settle or think that they’ve got anything perfected. They continue to listen to other people; they continue to open themselves up to evolve with the times and the circumstances they face.”
- Civility – There are few things simpler than just being kind to the people around you. Civility is a lost art, making it all the more necessary as a quality of leadership. “Just being fundamentally decent, kind, and respectful of other people is a basic thing. The idea that you have some common, basic frameworks for how human interactions occur is going to win you a certain amount of morale that will generate a willingness for people to really throw in and give their all to something.”
Integrity is an important quality for leadership, but it’s also bigger than that. Integrity is an essential quality for everyone – holding society to a higher standard might the best way to help bridge all of the division that we see today. Studeman said, “When people are not held accountable for their behavior and their actions and allowed to get away with what they are doing, then it normalizes poor behavior and begins to be a major form of erosion of all those things that we know to be right and true and good.”