Next Level Blog
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The Six Factors That Drive Confidence in Leaders November 16 2009
For the past four years, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership has conducted an annual public opinion poll to determine the sector leaders in which Americans have the most and least confidence and the factors behind those confidence levels. The 2009 results have just been released and there are some pretty interesting conclusions.
First, the sectors where the confidence level in leaders are up in a statistically significant way over last year are the military, the executive branch and business. Those that showed a significant decline are medical, nonprofits and charity, state government, the news media and Wall Street. Based on an index where 100 indicates a moderate amount of confidence the only three sectors that scored higher than that level were the military, medical and nonprofits and charity. Of those three, the military is the only sector to score well above 100 on the confidence index with a score of almost 120.
According to the study, there are six key factors that have the greatest impact on Americans’ confidence in their leaders. These factors are:
- Trust in what the leaders say
- Competence to do the job
- Working for the greater good of society
- Share my values
- Get good results
- In touch with people’s needs and concerns
Given what’s happened over the past year, it’s not surprising that the military and the nonprofit sector leaders were in the top three. Likewise, when you consider the past year and look at the six most important factors, it’s easy to understand why the two lowest ranked sectors were the news media (balloon boy, anyone?) and Wall Street (how about those bonuses?)
Reading between the lines of the study, I see one other factor that’s not explicitly mentioned but I think comes into play. That factor is the perceived clarity and importance of the sector’s purpose and mission. If you download and read the study, it’s striking how much higher the leadership of the military and the nonprofit sectors are rated in all six key factors than are the leadership of other highlighted sectors. I asked myself “What do these two sectors have in common?” and clarity and importance of purpose was the answer.
To stand a chance of being effective, leaders must generate confidence in the people that depend on them. How do you think you stack up on each of the six key factors? How are you doing on clearly defining and communicating why what your organization does matters? If you were going to pick one factor in which you could improve, what would it be? What are three things you could do in the next year to move the needle in a positive direction?
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
interesting that 4 out of the 6 factors rely heavily on EQ…it is in line with the leadership exercise we did at Georgetown with IQ, EQ and Technical Skills
Great message. I like the point about working 4 the greater good (win/win). Leadership is painfully missing in the business sector today.
Our government and the media (at the bottom of this list) often denigrate the motivations of our medical professionals (top of the list). Thus, the least trustworthy professions in our socity malign the most successful. Do we really want the worst amongst us to oversee and judge the best? The phrase "government run health care" should terrify people.
Good post, thanks for sharing. This information about leaders is not terribly surprising; yet it does point to perhaps a lack of what leaders should be focusing on in today's environment. There is a great deal of uncertainty, and many of these factors can do a great deal to set the fear and anxiety about the uncertainly aside. Several of the factors can be summed up in a term known as servant leadership. I have devoted a chapter on this in my latest book on leadership published this year.
Thanks again for sharing.
Scott: Great blog. Thanks for cueing us to the Harvard study. And your points about clarity of mission/purpose and the importance of a leader instilling confidence in those they lead are spot on. Obviously it helps if the leader has confidence in the mission before a filter down effect may be achieved. Again, great stuff Scott.
This is a fascinating study for the movement of individual groups. But from year to year it seems like the same four groups come out on top. I think that's because they're sectors that are perceived to be driven by a purpose beyond self-interest.
I believe that the time has come for our organizations and our leaders to come from these points. If they are to make it the time is now.
Thanks for all of the interesting comments and points of view everyone. Particularly appreciate the points about alignment with service to the greater good. Think that's available to leaders in any sector as long as the question, "What's in the interest of the greater good?" is asked. For those of us who are coaches, perhaps we need to be asking that question of our clients (and ourselves) on a regular basis.