Running a country or a business—leaders must ‘honor the room,’ says Wharton professor

On a new episode of Wharton’s Ripple Effect podcast, Michael Useem, professor emeritus of management at the school and faculty director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management says there is a “mission critical leaders checklist” with five top components. They include: thinking strategically, acting decisively, communicating persuasively, and also revealing your character.

“People want to know who you are,” Useem says. And that includes your experience, values, and what you bring to the table as a person, he says.

And the fifth critical component is: “Honor the room. It’s a politician’s phrase, very applicable at the moment,” Useem says. That means taking time to communicate with your team, find commonalities, remind them of the strategic direction, and make sure to always tell them how essential they are, he says.

In the corporate world, all people in senior leadership positions are concerned about employees, supply chains, the communities where they operate, and “pulling those diverse constituencies together for common cause and purpose,” Useem explains.

For a political candidate, “given the great diversity in our voting public, their great challenge is to pull people together who often have very diverse points of view,” he says.

Useem thinks the art of leadership is at its core about finding common ground. 

“We couldn’t find that back in 1861 when the country fell apart over the Civil War,” Useem says. “Little tough this year as well to find that. But I think the great leaders of the moment are those that can find common ground, even if it looks like there is none out there.”

Useem is also a prolific author. In one of his books, The Edge: How 10 CEOs Learned to Lead—and the Lessons for Us All, he examines the decision-making of chief executives at major companies. 

In a previous interview with Useem, he told me the experience of Denise Ramos, former CEO and president of ITT, is a good example of strategic partnership. Ramos was the CFO for ITT when the company was breaking into three spin-offs, he said. The board chair asked her to become the chief executive of one of the three, he said….