"All that is gold does not glitter"

I can't remember exactly when I first picked up the book, The Hobbit by the author, J.R.R. Tolkien.  All I can say is that once I read it, I was hooked.  For life.  I soon moved on to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I confess I must have read at least 10 or so times during my childhood and adolescence.  In addition to being a great writer and philologist (philology is the study of languages in both written and oral forms), Tolkien was a gifted poet.  One of my favorites was a poem called, simply enough, "All that is gold does not glitter", or alternatively, "The Song of Aragorn."  The title (and first line) is borrowed from William Shakespeare's play, "The Merchant of Venice" (which, in turn, is taken from an ancient proverb similar to the phrase, "You can't judge a book by its cover"). 


Tolkien's poem is referring to the character, Aragorn, known in the first book of the trilogy, by the name, Strider.  Here is the text of the poem:


All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes, a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.


Simply put, the character Strider is a much more important character than he first appears.  He is infinitely more than he looks.  He is, to borrow another well-worn phrase, a diamond in the rough.


There was a recent article in the magazine, Strategy+Business called "The Four X Factors of Exceptional Leaders" that I think is appropriate here.  The article begins with an analogy involving the National Football League's scouting combine.  Every February, college athletes go through a series of skill tests and drills (e.g., 40 yard dash, vertical leap, bench press) and personality assessments in front of team owners, coaches, and scouts to determine if they have what it takes to be successful players in the NFL.  Not every player who scores exceptionally well on these tests goes on to a Hall of Fame worthy career - indeed, some never make it after training camp.  Moreover, not every Hall of Fame player was identified by the combine either.  So, you could argue (as some have) that the tests that are used at the NFL combine don't have a lot of predictive value.


So the logical question then - how effective are we at predicting the success of our leaders?  Can we use a set of processes or tests to identify which individuals will be great leaders?  Does having a certain background or set of credentials predict success for, say, a hospital CEO?  As the Strategy+Business article points out, there is an inherent bias (first described by the cognitive psychologists, Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky) here that is called the illusion of validity.  As the authors of the article state, "this error arises when organizations use the profiles of historically successful leaders within the business to assess the traits of current candidates" for leadership positions. 


There are certain qualifications or skills that many boards of directors view as "table stakes" (previous CEO experience, articulating a vision and having a strategic mindset to accomplish it, executive-level "presence", and financial acumen, typically demonstrated by previous P&L experience).  The question then is whether these are really "table stakes" - do checking the box off on a checklist of typical "CEO-level attributes" necessarily predict whether someone will be a great CEO.  The authors argue not.  Instead, they identify four so-called "X factors" of exceptional leaders, listed below (not necessarily in order of precedence):


1. They simplify complexity and operationalize it.
2. They drive ambition for the whole enterprise.
3. They play well on teams they don't lead.
4. They build leaders.


Not a bad list actually.  And, by focusing on the classic "table stakes", we may miss out on that "diamond in the rough" or the ranger who will become king.  If we don't recognize that "all that is gold does not glitter" - we miss out on someone who can and will be an incredible leader.