Leadership: Counting Your Vertical Pronouns

In my 9 years of working in tech, I have had 13 different managers, each with an average tenure of 8 months. While this is not an ideal environment that I would recommend to anyone, I think it is indicative of the fast-paced startup environments that I have worked in. But as with any challenge, there is always a new opportunity. In this case, I was able to see many different leadership styles and understand the type of leader that I would like to be. So, when I started listening to a recent podcast interview with Jim Collins on what makes for great leaders, I was captivated by his description of a “Level 5” leader:

“Level 5 leaders display a powerful mixture of personal humility and indomitable will. They're incredibly ambitious, but their ambition is first and foremost for the cause, for the organization and its purpose, not themselves.“

For Jim Collins’ research, he analyzed over a thousand Fortune 500 CEOs on a number of different factors - noticeably how often they use the word “I”. I found this intriguing as I have noticed in my personal experience that great managers often describe the work they have done as if it was completed by the team, even though it was obvious to the team that this was not the case. This was well received by the team and set an example for how we should lead as individual contributors.

So, if you are wondering what type of manager you are, start by counting your vertical pronouns.