Summary: The Leader’s Checklist: 16 Mission-Critical Principles by Michael Useem

Key Takeaways

• Continue reading to learn more about one leader’s effective checklist.
• Consider how you can apply at least one principle from the checklist to strengthen your own leadership.

Recommendation

American International Group (AIG) was a major corporation until the 2007 financial crisis. By 2008, it faced the “largest annual shortfall in corporate history.” But, AIG’s dramatic collapse didn’t have to happen. Author Michael Useem believes that if its leaders had relied on comprehensive checklists, they would’ve been on top of AIG’s plight, and the government probably wouldn’t have needed to rescue it. In his bestseller’s 10th-anniversary edition, he offers excellent stories and helpful insights for preparing for the future while staying focused and organized. Useem advocates using checklists, so you know what you need to do, and he warns that both action and inaction have consequences.

Take-Aways

• Leadership checklists help you become a better leader.
• Base your checklists on 16 core leadership principles.
• Business presentations should reflect the principles of leadership.
• One size never fits all. Customize your lists to fit your needs.
• Develop checklists for team leaders, board members and team-of-teams leaders.

Summary

Leadership checklists help you become a better leader.

The most useful leadership checklists reflect established managerial principles, hard-earned experience and reliable evidence. Following checklists that you’ve created – or adapted to fit your needs – will help you become a better leader. With checklists, you can prioritize your most important leadership actions and make mission-critical choices.

“No two leadership positions are exactly the same, nor do any two circumstances require the identical exercise of leadership.”

Never participate in a board meeting, engage in a brainstorming session, or conduct an employee or customer gathering without first reviewing your most relevant checklists – either existing guidelines or personal lists you’ve developed or amended.

With the correct checklists, you can identify important issues, generate appropriate questions and reach revelatory answers that help you refine your thinking. To tackle the challenges leaders must confront and overcome, check your lists.

Base your checklists on 16 core leadership principles.

These 16 leadership principles should be at the heart of your executive checklists, whether you use a published list or design a customized version for yourself:

1. “Articulate a vision” – Communicate a definitive, persuasive vision to everyone you lead. Ask: Does your team understand where it’s going and why?
2. “Think and act strategically” – Carry out actions that enable you and those you lead to achieve your shared vision in both the short- and long-term. Make sure your team members understand the team’s vision and its ramifications. Anticipate their reactions and be prepared to respond to both support and resistance. Ask: Has your team developed solid immediate and future plans? Have you factored in crucial people and prepared for potential roadblocks? Can each team member intelligently explain the team’s planned strategy?
3. “Honor the room” – Communicate the confidence you feel about your people. Ask: Have you shown your team members that you value them? Are they engaged in their work? Do they operate from a team-based perspective
4. “Take charge and lead change” – Consider your decisions carefully, so you can take the most appropriate actions. Ask: Do you always act like a leader, even if you’re not formally designated as the head of your group?
5. “Act decisively” – Leaders need to be right more often than they’re wrong. US Marines learn to make quick decisions in stressful conditions even without complete information. They accept one-time, instructive mistakes and avoid indecision as, “worse than making a mediocre decision, because a middling decision, swiftly executed, can at least be corrected.” Ask: Do you normally make good decisions? Do you make decisions on time? Do your decisions lead to actions your team can execute?
6. “Communicate persuasively” – Your visionary strategic messages will be worthless if the people you lead don’t understand them or promptly forget them. Be clear and memorable. Ask: Do you make sure that your messages are understandable? Do you use a variety of communication channels? Can you explain your main messages succinctly?
7. “Motivate the workforce” – Figure out each team member’s individual motivations and build on them. Align their priorities with your organization’s goals. Management expert Peter Drucker found that effective leaders delegate well, although they maintain control over strategic priorities. Ask: Can you identify each team member’s “hot button”?Have you called on each team member to act with “personal pride and shared purpose”? Are you building future leaders
8. “Embrace the front lines” – Other than strategic decisions, delegate all necessary activities to those you lead. Closely monitor their actions. Ask: Have you made your intentions clear? Do you fully empower your team? Do you routinely meet with each customer-facing team member? Do the people on your team share their concerns with one another?
9. “Build leadership in others” – Cultivate capable future leaders. Ask: Do you encourage self-development among your team members? Does your culture encourage everyone to act like a leader?
10. “Manage relations” – Foster personal relationships with those you lead. Ask: Is your firm too hierarchal? Are your managers empathetic? Does your firm address problematic leaders?
11. “Identify personal implications” – Explain how your vision as a leader and the strategies you develop will have a positive impact on your people. Ask: Do your employees understand how the firm’s strategy affects them? Are they willing to make individual sacrifices to help the team and the company achieve a shared goal?
12. “Convey your character” – People follow leaders they respect and admire. Use positive gestures, memorable narratives and engaging commentary to establish your character and integrity. Show your character in how you behave. A study of middle managers in telecom, financial services and food processing industries in 62 countries advised leaders to avoid “autocratic, egocentric and irritable styles.” Ask: Do you establish personal connections with each team member?
13. “Dampen over-optimism and excessive pessimism” – Don’t let setbacks throw you and don’t let success go to your head. Avoid hubris and unnecessary risk. React with moderation. Be prepared. Ask: Can you and your team celebrate organizational successes without falling prey to overconfidence?
14. “Build a diverse top team”– Work is a team activity. Ask: Are you including your team’s top performers in your inner circle? Have you created a united leadership group of diverse people? Do your team members feel engaged?
15. “Place common interest first” – Your personal wishes are not important, but your team’s common goals are a critical priority. Ask: Have you defined the purpose of your team and your organization? Do you stress the importance of mutual objectives over personal advantages?
16. “Think like a CEO“ – If your CEO has a request for you or your team, deliver it on time, within specifications and in top form. See the world and your business as your CEO does. Ask: Do you reason like a CEO?

Business presentations should reflect the core principles of leadership.

Far too many presentations leave the audience clamoring for better information and more of it. When speakers fail to follow a checklist, they may omit crucial data.Sound business presentations spring from the 16 core leadership principles, which apply to all organizations of all sizes in any field. Structure your presentation to provide clarity, inclusion, thorough information and a sense of mutual purpose.

Communicating clearly is among the core principles that are often neglected, though it is deeply important. Leaders who cannot communicate, particularly when their organization is on the firing line, appear clueless and damage their company’s reputation. Consider the negative impact of Tony Hayward, then the CEO of BP, who never convincingly conveyed appropriate concern about the environmental damage his corporation’s broken wellhead had unleashed.

“First-person accounts of leadership during calamitous instants often provide indelible insights about how to lead when we are called to lead.”

When more skillful communicators find themselves in the lead during a crisis, their actions set an instructive example. Joseph Pfeifer, chief of Counterterrorism and Emergency Preparedness for the New York City Fire Department on September 11, 2001 – the day terrorist attacks brought down the World Trade Center skyscrapers – emphasizes the importance of sharing rapidly unfolding information as promptly as possible among all concerned parties. He learned that complicated crises require more than “command and control;” they also call on leaders to “connect, collaborate and coordinate.”

One size never fits all. Customize your lists to fit your needs.

Customize your leadership checklists to suit each leader and his or her needs. Tailor your checklists to fit your:

1. Organization – The best checklists vary according to the needs of individual firms. For example, the ideal leader’s checklist for General Electric will focus on teaching GE executives how to run their divisions according to GE’s standards. In contrast, the ideal leader’s checklist for someone at Google might focus on teaching executives how to optimize their teams’ creativity. What corporate values should your ideal leadership checklist reflect?
2. Responsibilities – Each executive needs a specific leader’s checklist, depending on his or her job assignment and the kind of team he or she leads. For example, CEOs require a checklist that covers the steps toward establishing meaningful relationships with investors. Members of a board of directors need a checklist that addresses working with senior managers to develop corporate strategies.
3. Nation – Leaders in Asian countries may face different requirements than leaders in the United States, Europe or South America. A 67-country study of leadership found that in countries “such as the United States,” executives tend to “work to engage rather than just instruct,” while leaders in China favor “indirect forms of communication through metaphors and parables.” Research found that managers in India use a mix of “Western principles” and Indian cultural qualities, including seeing employees as assets, being improvisational and establishing value for large numbers of demanding consumers who have tight budgets. Chinese executives, on the other hand, pursue opportunities and cope willingly with uncertainty. In general, they are determined, assured, optimistic and patient.Consider how your culture affects your leadership needs and concerns.
4. Times – Leaders face extra demands when their companies’ needs shift with volatile circumstances. When times change, when there’s good news or bad, when the economy is booming or troubled, leaders face different demands – and they require different, specific checklists.
5. Corporate maturity – Where is your organization in its long-term development? When Margaret Whitman began at eBay, for example, it employed only 35 people. A decade later, she was managing a workforce of 15,000. How you would describe your firm’s current stage of development and maturation, and how would that affect your checklist?
6. Rank – Every executive and manager operates from his or her own location and position. Consider the place-related differences – and the resulting leadership differences – for an infantry officer leading a combat team, a fire chief whose team is battling a forest fire or a sales manager supervising a big city team. What environment shapes your operations?

Develop checklists for team leaders, board members and team-of-teams leaders.

The business world has leaders at every level, from team managers to CEOs to boards of directors members who act as fiduciaries for their organization, shareholders and stakeholders. Each kind of leader needs a tailored checklist and needs to update that checklist over time.To keep your checklist evergreen, refresh it when your circumstances shift, when you get more complete data, and when you gain new skills or knowledge. The checklist isn’t static, and it doesn’t replace seasoned, reasonable judgment. It’s a reminder, a prompt, and you want to be sure it reminds you of the right actions at the right time.

“The simple expedient of building and mastering the equivalent of a pilot’s or a surgeon’s mission-critical checklist – the leader’s checklist – can lessen many…leadership lapses.”

Many organizations have leaders who head a coalition or a team of teams. As retired General Stanley McChrystal details in his book, Team of Teams, large, complex organizations gain speed and flexibility by relying on a team-of-teams structure. Within this framework, teams, units, functional roles and geographic regions unite efficiently under the direction of general managers. Each tier of leaders and teams needs its own checklist.

A team leader’s checklist might include these items:

1. Educate – Build your team members’ knowledge and cognitive skills.
2. Plan – Establish specific goals and defined, varied tasks for your team members.
3. Energize – Encourage team members to be flexible and evolve as demands change.
4. Foster diversity and be inclusive – Seed your teams with people from a variety of backgrounds.

A board member’s leadership checklist could include:

1. Strategize – Board members must make sure their company’s executives generate well-developed strategic plans to create organizational value and increase competitive advantage.
2. Set a tone – To collaborate effectively, board members must show restraint and be diplomatic.
3. Mentor others – Board members must teach future leaders.
4. Advise – Board members serve in partnership with their company’s CEO who should be able to trust them to provide their best counsel.

The team of teams leader needs a checklist that includes these priorities:

1. Unify – Champion a “common mind-set” and collaborative culture.
2. Structure – Team-of-teams leaders organize around a “cohesive inner circle.” Each member shares a particular vision and offers the group relevant expertise.
3. Bonding – Team-of-teams leaders foster “strong lateral” bonds across divisional boundaries to develop a unified perspective among their team members.
4. Collaborate – In the team-of-teams framework, leaders of individual groups work toward their goals in collaboration with other teams.

About the Author

Michael Useem is a professor of management and the faculty director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management and the McNulty Leadership Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All, Leading Up: Managing Your Boss So You Both Win, The Edge: How Ten CEOs Learned to Lead – and the Lessons for Us All, and The Go Point: When It’s Time to Decide – Knowing What to Do and When to Do It.

Genres

Leadership, business, self-help, non-fiction, management, professional development, strategy, decision making, organizational behavior, ethics, globalization, long-term thinking

Review

This book provides a practical checklist that leaders in both business and public sectors can use to assess their leadership skills and guide their decision-making. Useem draws from his extensive research and experience working with large multinational companies to identify 15 key principles that effective leaders adhere to. These principles are grouped under four main priorities – focus on purpose, think long term, take a global view, and operate with integrity.

For each principle, Useem provides a concise definition and explains its importance through real-world examples. He then offers specific questions leaders can ask themselves to evaluate how well they embody that principle in their own work. This self-assessment approach makes the concepts immediately actionable. Throughout the book Useem’s tone is straightforward yet thoughtful. It is clearly aimed at busy executives who need leadership lessons distilled into digestible takeaways.

Some of the most notable principles discussed include defining a focused mission and strategy, developing a diverse team with longevity in mind, considering all stakeholders in decision-making, and establishing a culture of trust and transparency. While the principles are presented sequentially, Useem emphasizes they must work synergistically to produce outstanding leadership. Overall, the book delivers a pragmatic framework to guide leadership practice and growth.

The Leader’s Checklist is a valuable resource for any leader wanting to solidify strengths and shore up weaknesses. Useem’s distillation of proven leadership wisdom into a straightforward rubric makes continuous improvement accessible.