How to develop a leader
Imagine that the people with management responsibilities in your company are good leaders. Would that help grow your business?
Many authors mention a myriad of technical and non-technical competencies of a leader but rarely classify them or indicate their prevalence. Throughout my professional life, dealing with very different people in companies of varied sizes, activity, and sophistication, I have observed that leaders do not all possess the same competencies, each one has their own, developed to varying degrees and evolving over time.
Non-technical leadership competencies can be classified as either personal or interpersonal:
The table above – which is not exhaustive – illustrates various non-technical competencies of a leader. It is difficult to determine which of these competencies are common to all good leaders, and it is rare for a leader to possess all of them at an advanced level.
Leaders must also have various technical skills related either to their role (e.g., management, marketing, sales, finance, technology, logistics, production, among others) or their sector (e.g., engineering, agriculture, industry, law, livestock, architecture, medicine, nursing, and many more).
Beyond competencies, many authors refer to different leadership styles, such as:
More than distinct styles, the list above represents different approaches a leader can adopt depending on the circumstances, since no one behaves the same way all the time. For example, in a crisis, with little time to act, a good leader would not use a participative approach, even if that is their usual behavior. If it is difficult for a leader to have all the mentioned competencies, and leadership approaches vary with circumstances, what then distinguishes a leader? The answer does not lie in competencies (inputs) or behaviors (performance), but in results (outputs).
A Special Case
No one better exemplifies the thin line between a good leader and a poor one than a sports coach.
A few years ago, a coach of a top football team in Portugal won two consecutive championships. The following year, circumstances changed, the team lost cohesion, opponents became stronger, and trust between the coach and club executives eroded.
As a result, even though the coach had not lost his competencies and his behavior remained the same, he failed to adapt,
and results fell short of expectations. He quickly went from hero to zero and was dismissed.
What Distinguishes a Leader
Achieving – or exceeding – desired results sustainably is what distinguishes a leader. A leader that fails to deliver results won’t remain one for long, either being replaced by superiors or driving the company (or organizational unit) into failure.
Each company has specific results to achieve, but they fit generally on the 3 Ss:
- Service to the client
- Success for the shareholder
- Satisfaction of the employee
Only combining the 3 Ss can a company be sustainable. Good client service is indispensable to obtain loyalty, remunerating shareholders is indispensable for financing the business and employee satisfaction is indispensable to obtain their best performance, which is not possible without their development.
It is important to stress sustainability, since it is easier to achieve results when continuity is not a concern. For example, in an industrial company, profitability might increase in the short term by stopping the purchase of raw material. However, production will stop once inventory runs out.
In addition to delivering sustainable results, there is another essential but sometimes overlooked quality: the company must be able to continue achieving results after the leader leaves. In fact, what sets good leaders apart is their ability to develop their team so that someone can replace them when the time comes, minimizing the risk of results being dependent on themselves.
Conclusion
Being a good leader is highly demanding. It requires developing a wide range of competencies, the ability to act according
to different circumstances, and achieving sustainable results while also developing others to keep achieving them in the future.
Now that you know what it means to be a good leader, invest in developing your team's leadership competencies, especially the indispensable ones, because that will certainly help grow your business.
Filipe Simões de Almeida
Managing Partner, Fi Consulting
Published on 02-09-2025