The Five E’s of Essential Leadership, shared at a Blackstone Leadership meeting, reflect the ideals of speaker Sandy Ogg, a Blackstone Operating Partner, who eats and breathes leadership capabilities. He developed this list over the course of his years as the Global Talent and Leadership executive at both Motorola and Unilever. What do you think?
Envision – Start with where you are going. As an executive, if you don’t have a vision for your role and the job you will deliver to drive enterprise value, you can’t possibly take a team with you. Have a point of view and be passionate about it. It is almost impossible to provide inspiration when this foundation hasn’t been articulated.
Energy – Good leaders export energy and lots of it. They bring their A game to every meeting and every interaction. There is nothing worse than walking into a room where some unhappy camper is sucking energy from the rest of the group. Energy is obvious—even during a first interview. If the person on the other side of the table doesn’t bring a high level of energy and enthusiasm to the interview, they are highly unlikely to deliver it in their job.
Edge – Leaders need to maintain a certain toughness. This is not the same as meanness, but rather the ability to make difficult calls when it comes to other people. Those who have edge make the toughest calls more quickly and effectively than others.
Ethics – There are two ways to think about ethics. There are big ‘E’s’ and there are little ‘e’s.’ The big E’s are easy and refer to the obvious: don’t lie, cheat or steal. Zero tolerance with these. But the little e’s are absolutely critical—things like don’t deceive, manipulate or take advantage of people. Violations of these undermine the basic tenants of trust in the organization.
Execute – Essential in every company, the art of getting things done produces better investment outcomes. In the PE environment, speed is even more critical.
Your leadership mantra is like a north star for your leadership. Let us know, what leadership mantra do you follow?
