I did some research on ‘like and leadership’ in 2004. Have I told you about it? No?
Well, my research was entitled, ‘Likeability and Leadership: the investigation into the existence of a link’
And guess what? My research found that there was!
I gave people a list of 25 qualities and I asked them to rank them in terms of what someone needed to be ‘likeable’. I asked the same question for ‘effective leadership’.
Four out of the top five qualities people identified were the same, except in a different order of importance.
Qualities for likeability are on the left. Effective leadership are on the right.
This definitely supports my argument that leadership is all about relationships and that organisations should be focusing on soft/relational skills as much as, if not more so, than hard skills.