Six traits that have been demonstrated to be highly correlated with success in business leadership and they represent the good minimum standards any executive should aspire to cultivate within himself. Obviously, this is not an all-inclusive list of characteristics needed for success.

I was recently working with a com- pany whose CEO had led it on a fourteen year run of unprecedented prosperity. Under that CEO's leadership, the company which was on the brink of bankruptcy made a turnaround to become the number one or two in virtually all the markets it participated. But, the time came for the CEO to retire, and the board asked us to help it choose a successor who could help sustain the company's success.

Before I began my evaluation of the potential candidates, I wanted to get a sense of the distinguishing characteristics that made the previous CEO so successful. As I observed him work with the board, I couldn't help noticing how frequently and intensely the board and the CEO disagreed on a whole host of topics. In fact, it seemed apparent that the CEO and many of the board members had very little personal affinity for one another. Yet, the relationship between them remained extremely productive for over a decade. I began to notice how so many of the characteristics this top executive possessed seemed to go against the accepted wisdom of who makes the best CEO. The man I was observing lacked charisma and was, in fact a relatively quiet individual. He cut a relatively unassuming figure that would hardly be noticed in a small group, and he was not particularly adept at forging relationships with customers. A question struck me—if this CEO could lack so many of the traits that we have come to believe are essential in a leader, and yet remain extremely effective, then what are those characteristics that really determine who will be a successful leader, and how do we go about determining if a candidate has those attributes or not?

As a consultant who is hired by companies to assess the qualifications of CEO candidates, I am often asked as I am presenting my findings, "How did this guy get to be such a great leader?" Invariably, I respond, "I really don't know." This typical conversation outlines the problem that everyone who is interested in business confronts _ namely, if there is almost no roadmap or recipe to becoming a successful CEO, how does one know what steps to take to get there? The simple answer to this perplexing question is that we will never be able to pinpoint the exact steps one must take to be the highest-caliber top executive of a company, but we can look at some of the common traits that most exceptional leaders possess in order to cultivate those characteristics in ourselves, and learn ways for businesses to go about identifying the best potential candidates for the CEO position.

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