The Four C's of Leadership

Peter Bregman has written a number of articles on leadership for Harvard Business Review.  While looking up another article, I came across an article he wrote in July 2018 entitled, "Great Leaders Are Confident, Connected, Committed, and Courageous".  He states that in order to be an effective leader, you have to be (1) confident in yourself, (2) connected to others, (3) committed to purpose, and (4) emotionally courageous.  He explains further that "Most of us are great at only one of the four.  Maybe two.  But to be a powerful presence - to inspire action - you need to excel at all four simultaneously."  

Bregman used a fictional case (or at least a case in which the names had been changed to protect everyone's identity) of a leader who failed in at least two of these characteristics, describing the steps that the leader could have taken to address an employee who was underproductive and underperforming.  Of course, by the end of the article, the leader in the fictional case had done everything correctly and everyone lived happily ever after.

I immediately noticed that all four of these characteristics that are so foundational to leadership start with the letter C, and I remembered having read other leadership articles that spoke about the "Four C's of Leadership" (at times, a fifth C was added).  What's perhaps not so surprising is that these different leadership articles generally describe the same leadership characteristics, give or take a few.  They generally include some combination of the following: Courage, Commitment, Compassion, Connection, Competence, Character, Consistency, and Candour.      

Another leadership blogger, John Dabell, talks about his "four C's of leadership" and states, "We have enough recipes for leadership to fill a cookbook.  These are normally written as a concise list of qualities that you throw into your pedagogical pot, mix together and gently heat.  Some even contain magic ingredients, a plus one...Some recipes rely on just a few ingredients and conveniently some of these all share the same initial letter to make our lives easier."  

Regardless of which characteristics are included in the "leadership cookbook", what perhaps matters most is how we, as leaders, use the cookbook itself.  In other words, success in leadership probably depends less on how exactly the recipe is followed and more on how the different "ingredients" blend together to become leadership when it is all taken out of the "oven."

At least for the remainder of this post, I will use Bregman's list of "four C's", recognizing that some of the other characteristics are important as well.  And in so doing, I will avoid the temptation to come up with the "eight C's of leadership"!  So let's review again (note that I am changing the order a little bit):

Courage

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said that "Courage is the mother of all virtues because without it, you cannot consistently perform the others."  Leaders have to willing to choose "the hard right over the easy wrong".  As General Norman Schwarzkopf said, "The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."  What's frequently true is that the difficult decision is usually the least popular one.  Leaders have to be courageous enough to make the difficult decision, regardless of how popular it is in the end.  

Confidence

In many ways, confidence goes hand-in-hand with competency (frequently listed as one of the "Four C's" by others) and courage (one of Bregman's characteristics).  Part of what gives leaders the courage to make the difficult decisions is the confidence that they have in themselves and their abilities as leaders.  However, an important caveat that I have talked about in some of my older posts (see, for example, "Oh Lord it's hard to be humble..." and "Lessons in Humility") is the importance of being "humbly confident" - we don't need leaders who are so "over the top" confident that they border on arrogance and hubris.  We need leaders who are both confident in their own ability, yet humble enough to recognize that they don't have all the answers and willing to listen to others.  General Douglas MacArthur once said, "A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.  He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent."  

Connected

Bregman also talks about the importance of being connected with others, which I believe goes hand-in-hand with compassion (see how I am bringing all of the C's in to my list!).  Leaders have to know their staff and build relationships with everyone on the team.  As one of my mentors used to say, "I would never ask my team to do something that I am not willing to do myself."  A leader who is connected to others would never do ask someone to do something that he or she is not willing to do on their own.  Leaders who are connected to others are open, honest, and transparent (there's candour and character!) - building trust establishes connection!    

Commitment

Bregman would state that leaders have to be committed to a purpose, usually the organization's mission and vision.  Leaders also have to be committed to their people.  Commitment requires consistency, and as John Maxwell said, "Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time."  Commitment helps leaders and their teams achieve greatness.

There's a very good chance that you could probably come up with your own list of "Four C's of leadership", but I would be willing to bet that many of these characteristics would be on that list.  Again, the ingredients are important, but what is probably most important is how they are used in the recipe!