What Makes a Great Leader

As a kid, I was obsessed with airplanes—especially WWII fighters. That led me to join the Canadian Air Cadets. My mother agreed as long as it didn’t cost anything, and I could get a ride with the Lawless brothers who were already enrolled.

We learned leadership mostly by organizing each other—learning to set an example and earn trust. Early on, I realized this: nobody, not even your friends, will follow you if you say one thing and do another.

There were also the less inspiring classroom sessions, led by cadets just a few years older than us. I mostly remember lists of ideal leadership traits—courage, intelligence, charisma, etc. Even as a teenager, I was skeptical. Nobody embodies all those traits all the time. We’d call that the “Great Man Theory” today—the idea that leaders are born, not made. Thankfully, things have evolved.

I don’t remember when I first came across the work of Kouzes and Posner, but two insights from their research stuck with me. First, leadership is learnable. Anyone can get better at it.

Second, they found that improvement comes from practising specific behaviours over time:

• Honesty: Be trustworthy, keep your word, and make sure your actions match what you say. Set the example.
• Competence: Be good at what you do—know your job, and do it well.
• Forward-Looking: Have a vision for the future, and share it in a way that inspires people, or at least gives them a clear sense of what they’re working toward.

There—I just saved you 500 pages of reading. You’re welcome! There are more, but those are the top three.

Kouzes and Posner’s work was groundbreaking. It’s backed by decades of research with thousands of leaders worldwide—grounded in data, not just anecdotes. By emphasizing values like honesty and integrity, they positioned leadership as an ethical practice. And they showed that people look for the same core qualities, giving leaders a clear understanding of what their teams need to trust and follow them.