Page 1 of 2 ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS Leadership Article.docx

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ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
Leadership Article: The Six Competencies of a CEO.
Author: Modesto A. Maidique, Candace Atamanik, Ruthann B.
Perez.
This assignment is intended to get you thinking about the type o
f leader you want to become. Crafting a
vision of what you want your leadership to look like is tremend
ously important for giving yourself a
personal leadership compass‐ your personal commitment to, and
guide for, development and
continuous learning.
To respond to the questions listed below, read carefully the artic
le, The Six Competencies of a CEO.
Consider the values you decided were important at the beginnin
g of the school year, think of the many
styles of leadership we discussed so far in class, the ones that y
ou regard are likely to be effective in
delivering the kinds of results that are important to you, or that
you feel will be important regardless of
the organizations you attach yourself to.
Your responses should:
a.
Demonstrate internalization of the topics and discussions we ha
ve had so far.
b.
Articulately and cogently represent your ideas and opinions. Op

inions should be supported
using information from the article, from your txt or from our dis
cussions. While I welcome
external sources for additional support of your arguments, this i
s not necessary and will require
that you sight the source. Be careful not to give opinions that ar
e not backed by some concrete
sources or reasoning.
c.
Indicate that you have thoughtfully considered your each questi
on and what is important for
you.
Note well: I will also be considering grammar, spelling and othe
r errors which to be will indicate the
extent to which you have re‐read your work and paid careful att
ention to how it is presented.
Your Assignment: Read carefully the article, The Six Competen
cies of a CEO, and respond to the
following:
1.
Describe how Maidique and others gathered the information for
this article. (no more than 3
sentences)
2.
In your own words, outline and explain the six competencies of
leadership described in the
article as you understand them. (3‐5 paragraphs)
3.
The article does not include Intelligence or cognitive ability as

a necessary competence, even
though we know that 25% of job performance can be predicted b
y intelligence‐ Why was this
not a competence included here? (no more than 3 sentences)
Page 2 of 2
4.
In your opinion, which of the competencies would be generally
more difficult to develop and
which would be easier to develop? Why? (2‐3 paragraphs)
5.
Based on the article, your text book and the topics discussed in
class, describe your vision of the
leader you want to become. (1‐2 pages) To help you answer this
question, ask yourself the
following:
a. What are my values, what’s important to me?
b.
What would be my leadership style? What would people say abo
ut me and the way I
lead?
c.
What preparation do I need in order to realize my vision of mys
elf as a leader?
d. What are my limitations?
e. What are my strengths?
Presenting Your Assignment
Your assignment should be done as a word document, single spa
ced, 12 point font. Be sure to include

your full name and panther ID#.
Submitting your Assignment
Assignments must be submitted through your course’s Black Bo
ard Assignment Drop Box. Late
assignments lose 15% of their value per day that they are late.
GUIDELINES FOR THE BOOK REVIEW
I. MATERIALS: Book must be a non-fictional work that deals
with some topic covering the presented historical time period.
One book is required; biographies, books concerning historical
movements & events—cultural, political or social—and specific
countries or civilization are all acceptable. It is suggested that
the student pick a book in a particular area of personal interest.
II. FORMS: Each book review should be from 4 to 6 neatly
typewritten pages (double-spaced), written in clear & accurate
English. Be sure to proof-read your paper before turning it in.
Spelling, punctuation, and even typographical errors are YOUR
responsibility. Bibliographical information should be included
in proper form at the beginning of the first page of the review.
Example: The United States & Japan, by Edwin O. Reischauer,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950, 357 pp.
(This may be single-spaced.)
III. CONTENT: Ordinarily the book review should be divided
into three interwoven sections.
SECTION 1: The Author. This section should include:
1. Background information on the author, to the extent that such
information is available.
2. The qualifications of the author for writing this book (i.e., is

he a scholar, a journalist, a politician, etc.)
3. A statement of the author’s frame of reference (his
assumptions & values) & his bias, if any.
SECTION 2: Contents of the book.
This section should be rather brief, but should contain some
indication of the plan of the book & a review of its contents. Do
not simply summarize, but rather describe the main theme,
pointing out, if desired, sections of particular interest.
Comments on the author’s literary style may also be included
here.
SECTION 3: Critical analysis.
This section should comprise at least one-half of the entire
review. Some of the points that might be included in this
section are answers to the following questions:
1. What source did the author use?
2. Do you feel he urged these sources properly?
3. Is the author critical or sympathetic of his subject?
4. What are the major strengths & limitations of the book?
5. Is the book relevant to this or other courses?
6. Would you recommend this book? To whom?
7. Is the book likely to have lasting value or is its use apt to be
only temporary & limited?
(Your review need not include all of the points listed here, nor

need it be confined to those points. They are intended as a
guide, upon which you may expand in writing an original
review.)
w i n t e r 2 0 1 4 3 1
e x e C u t i v e f o r u m
tHe SIX
CoMPeteNCIeS oF
a Ceo
Modesto A. Maidique, Candace Atamanik, & Ruthann B. Perez
L
eadership is inextricably intertwined with who
we are—we lead from the inside. Who we are
informs our moral compass, our ability to listen,
to make wise judgments, to persuade and inspire oth-
ers to follow, and perhaps most important, as Winston
Churchill admonished, to tirelessly persevere in the
pursuit of the ultimate goal.
the self is the centerpiece of leadership. In a 2012 in-
terview with the New York Times, Steelcase Ceo James
P. Hackett stated, “I’ve met just about every Ceo who
runs a big company. the ones I’m most impressed
with do not seem packaged. But they have this sense
of peace, this self-awareness, that says, ‘I understand
who I am.’”
It was just such factors that were identified by twenty-

five experienced and successful Ceos of multibillion-
dollar organizations when we asked them, “What does
a business leader need to do well to be effective?”
After analyzing their 442 comments and 178 indi-
vidual ideas, we employed qualitative factor analysis to
summarize our findings by identifying six critical compe-
tencies for effective CEOs. the six critical competencies
are self-awareness (understanding of the “self”), having
a moral compass, being an effective listener, possessing
good judgment, being a persuasive communicator, and
leading with tenacity (see table 1).
Based on these insights, we constructed the concen-
tric circle “Heart of Leadership Model” to visualize
our findings (see Figure 1).
1. Self-Awareness
effective leadership is deeply rooted in knowing yourself
and understanding all that implies. approximately half
of the Ceos pointed to self-awareness as being at the
core of everything they do. Some of the forty-two com-
ments included knowing who you are, being consistent
with your values, being honest with yourself, and trust-
ing your instincts. a study of more than forty thousand
leaders published in the Gallup Management Journal also
indicated that a leader must be clear on his strengths and
3 2 l e a d e r t o l e a d e r
successfully taken on in the past. the leadership team
was in agreement, they gave themselves plenty of time
to fully evaluate the options, and Mackey even relo-

cated to Boulder, Colorado, for a year to take charge.
the entire analysis indicated this would be a big win
for the company.
despite how sensible the deal seemed, or how great
it looked on paper, Mackey’s intuition kept telling
him otherwise. Mackey recalls, “I think my little voice
was telling me not to do this deal and I overrode that
because on paper, it seemed to make sense, and I just
didn’t understand. It was like, we’re not paying a high
price, good sales, good growth, good prospects, it’s
got intellectual capital. We brought in the investment
bankers, and they ran all kinds of numbers. the ra-
tional mind is a great example of overriding that little
inner voice because I really wanted to do the deal and
I just reasoned if we have problems, we’ll deal with it,
and we can fix it.” Whole Foods proceeded with the
decision to acquire amwin.
as it turns out, all the strengths Mackey and his team
saw ended up being the biggest weaknesses of the deal.
By overriding his self-doubt and going against his in-
stincts, Mackey took on a whirlwind of unforeseen
problems that they were not equipped to fix, mean-
while dealing with the merging of different cultures,
finding a replacement for amwin’s founder, and a sud-
den saturation of the competitive environment. Ulti-
mately the deal cost Whole Foods $100 million. Had
Mackey paid attention to his gut instinct, this setback
may have been avoided.
the Whole Foods story was consistent with many of
the examples of unsuccessful decisions that other Ceos
weaknesses: “Knowing who they are—and who they are
not.” drawing from his own experience, the late Steve

appleton, Ceo of Micron technology, Inc., told us,
“really good leaders have to have the ability for intro-
spection. they have to be able to look at themselves, [to]
see if there are gaps, and [if] there is something that they
don’t know or understand.”
Knowing yourself and listening to that inner voice can
be the Ceo’s most important competitive advantage.
In late 1997, after a series of highly successful acquisi-
tions, John Mackey, co-Ceo and founder of Whole
Foods, was presented with the opportunity of acquir-
ing amwin, a mail-order supplier of health supple-
ments, which would provide the platform for Whole
Foods to emerge in the Internet world. the handling
of this acquisition mirrored those Whole Foods had
Self-
Awareness
Moral
Compass
Listening Judgment Visionating Tenacity Outliers
Respondents 12 18 19 20 19 16
(ToTal = 25) 48.0% 72.0% 76.0% 80.0% 76.0% 64.0%
Thoughts 16 28 31 41 24 32 25
(ToTal = 178) 9.0% 15.7% 17.4% 23.0% 13.5% 18.0% 14.0%
Comments 42 55 64 100 61 67 53
(ToTal = 442) 9.5% 12.4% 14.5% 22.6% 13.8% 15.2% 11.9%

TabLe 1. t h e t o P S I x C o m P e t e N C I e S
Figure 1. t h e h e a r t o f L e a d e r S h I P
w i n t e r 2 0 1 4 3 3
to value them.” this becomes the first step in getting
your team interested and engaged in your mission as
a leader. Listening not only builds the foundation for
the future, but it is also the key in solving problems.
Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, told us,
“You have to be a good listener” and “You’ve got to
be able to identify good people.” It is only with that
understanding and connection that a leader can move
forward with the full support of his or her team. Ceos
who fail to actively listen to their teams and to the
environment are destined to miss the critical links that
drive success.
4. Possessing Good Judgment
Who you are—your life journey and its interpreta-
tion, your personality, and your values all play roles
in making decisions. Indeed, judgment was the most
frequently mentioned factor that our research pin-
pointed. But, alas, man does not prosper by judg-
ment alone.
the overall consensus was that without good judg-
ment, a leader is unlikely to be successful. Judgment,
it appears, was a necessary—but not sufficient—
competency. the hundred comments shared by Ceos
describe judgment in part as willingness to take risks
intelligently, ability to face issues, and collecting and
synthesizing information and data.

In order to make effective judgments, Micky arison,
chairman of the board of Carnival Corporation, be-
lieves the individual must be “smart in that they’ve
learned from their life experiences.” ray Stata, co-
founder and chairman of the board of analog devices,
Inc., puts it this way: “Part of the package is judgment.
It’s listening to a whole bunch of things and coming
up with a conclusion that is in the right direction and
respected by others. this is judgment.”
5. Persuading: Being a Good
“Visionator”
More than three-quarters of our interviewees agreed
that the work of a leader is not only to possess good
shared during their interviews. as promising as the data
may appear, the Ceo should be wary of overriding the
accumulated unconscious wisdom contained in his or
her intuition.
2. Having a Moral Compass
Understanding yourself builds the foundation for pos-
sessing good judgment, but 72 percent of the Ceos
agreed that the direction in which those instincts take
us, our moral compass, is critical in successful leader-
ship. david Parker, Coo of the archstone Partner-
ships, stated that having a moral compass precedes
making effective decisions: “You have to have high
principles and standards about making the right deci-
sions.” Seventeen other executives supported this with
fifty-five comments encompassing honesty, integrity,
and trustworthiness, each one reflecting the importance
of getting things done the right way.
Bill amelio, Ceo of CHC Helicopter and former

Ceo of Lenovo, explained that if he is going to bring
someone on board, the person must be trustworthy,
stating, “trust and confidence are critical.” He further
explains that “if you work for me, I’m not going to
be able to watch what you do all day. . . . I’ve got to
trust you.” Ceos must not only base their decisions on
doing the right thing, they must also surround them-
selves with individuals who possess an equally strong
moral compass.
3. Being an Effective Listener
the Ceos in our sample agreed that it’s critical to be
an effective listener. Listening is key to developing rela-
tionships, decision making, and problem solving. More
than 75 percent of interviewees cited being an effective
listener as a fundamental part of being a successful
leader; this encompasses more than just hearing the
words a person says, it includes listening to everything
that is going on. the sixty-four comments included
knowing people, truly valuing them, listening, devel-
oping trustful relationships, and having empathy. Pier
Luigi Foschi, chairman and Ceo of Carnival asia,
told us that “in managing people, you have to be able
the importance of being tenacious, as well as that of
other traits such as persistence, intensity of effort, hard
work, and drive. during his interview, John dasburg,
the chairman and Ceo of aStar air Cargo, Inc.,
talked to us about hiring and promoting people. “I
want to see how hard they work. there are a lot of
people out there that I’ve had working for me along
the years that have been brighter than me . . . but who

just ran out of steam around three in the afternoon.”
one of the best examples of tenacity in our research
comes from a first-person experience of one of the au-
thors while serving as president of Florida International
University (FIU) in Miami and his quest to establish a
law school there. He recounts the trajectory.
In 1988, the proposal for a College of Law was
presented to the state university system’s govern-
ing board. We were literally laughed out of the
room and no consideration was given to our pro-
posal. In 1993, during the planning process for
the next five-year cycle, we tried again and secured
only one vote (out of thirteen) from a good friend,
regent Perla tabares Hantman from Miami. In
1998 we were poised to try again, but board chair-
man dennis ross from tampa requested that we
postpone until the next year, because 1998 was
a gubernatorial election year and our law school
project could become embroiled in gubernatorial
politics. We complied.
When we tried for the fourth time we achieved
three votes in favor, in part by linking with Florida
a&M’s similar goal of establishing a law school.
one group that was solidly behind us was our
south Florida legislative delegation that pleaded
with the board to approve our proposal. State
representative alex Villalobos said, “today, we
appear before you as plaintiffs, tomorrow when
you seek approval of your budget, the tables will
be reversed.” Notwithstanding the not-so-veiled
threat, our law school was not approved, nor was
the law school of historically black Florida a&M.
the vote was ten to three.

the following year, 2001, with our encourage-
ment, a coalition of south Florida and north
judgment and make effective decisions, but to be able
to communicate decisions persuasively as they communi-
cate their vision. Being a persuasive communicator goes
beyond rote communication to encompass elements
of inspiration and motivation. Sixty-one Ceo com-
ments describe this trait as the ability to define vision,
to articulate, establish a connection with people, and to
motivate and inspire. Peter drucker believed that lis-
tening and communicating are two of the three critical
competencies of a leader, as he mentions in his book,
Managing the Non-Profit Organization. Cesar Conde,
president of Univision Networks, explains, “a leader
has to be able to articulate vision or strategy and the
direction they are going, because you can have the best
idea or concept, and [if you] can’t articulate it, it’s not
going to be any good.”
Connecting with people involves the complemen-
tary talents of being a persuasive communicator and
being an effective listener when knowing your audi-
ence is crucial. Steve appleton explained to us, “I
have found that good leaders have to be adaptable
in their approach, in their personality. Good leaders
are like good actors in that they can adapt to the
role. the way I approach one executive may be com-
pletely different than the way I approach another
executive.” From a global perspective, appleton
highlights the differences in building persuasive re-
lationships between people of different cultures, tell-
ing us, “You have to recognize cultural differences
and value differences and how you approach people,
because [people] are very, very different.”

6. Leading with Tenacity
even the most skilled and experienced Ceos make
mistakes. When we asked the twenty-five Ceos in our
sample to tell us about major judgment lapses, twenty-
one out of twenty-five readily explained how lack of
knowledge regarding the relevant business, personal
factors, or failure to rely on their intuition led them
to make significant errors. the key, they said, was to
persevere and work hard in the face of adversity. that
is why tenacity is the sixth essential talent of the Ceo.
roughly 15 percent or sixty-seven comments illustrate
w i n t e r 2 0 1 4 3 5
role-playing, and having wise mentors. Listening and
communicating can be improved by deliberate prac-
tice and coaching. each of the competencies serves to
strengthen and leverage judgment. Judgment can also
get better with experience and feedback from mentors.
the best leadership development programs seek to
develop executives in some, if not all, of these areas.
tenacity may be the most difficult competency to
improve because tenacity is both a learned behav-
ior and also part of your intrinsic personality. the
place to start is by getting a measure of your tenacity.
tenacity, as described here, is similar to the “grit”
construct proposed by Professor angela duckworth
from the University of Pennsylvania. duckworth has
developed a twelve-item grit scale published in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that ranks
grit on a 1–5 scale.

the good news is that whatever your starting point,
you can get better. Grit gets better with practice, es-
pecially deliberate practice; with self-coaching, self-
analysis, or with the help of outside coaching. one
approach is to set challenging goals and analyze how
you go about achieving them. Why did you not try
harder? What kinds of obstacles are difficult for you to
bridge? Celebrate and reward yourself when you suc-
ceed. ask your mentors for help.
Conclusion
We interviewed twenty-five successful executives about
what is critical for leadership because we wanted to
hear their firsthand accounts. We didn’t want idio-
syncrasies—we wanted to know which themes would
emerge regarding effective leadership. after carefully
scrutinizing the interviews, a picture appeared that
centers on six core competencies.
the six competencies can be organized around three
themes: wisdom, persuasion, and resilience. to act in
a wise manner, a leader must understand who she is,
be comfortable in her own skin, have a clear and ethi-
cal sense of direction, be able to build relationships of
trust with others, and to actively listen with an open
mind. But, who is a leader without followers? a leader
Florida legislators dissolved the Florida Board of
regents. Henceforth universities would be gov-
erned by individual boards of trustees, not by a
statewide board.
our new local board promptly and unanimously
approved our proposal for a law school, and
with a political push from our delegation led by
one of our state senators, Mario diaz-Balart, the

Florida Senate voted 40–0 to approve, the House
120–0. the governor signed the bill. FIU had a
law school. Last year, the FIU law school led all
Florida law schools in bar passage rate.
this twenty-three-year process exemplifies what we
think Ceos meant by tenacity.
Outliers
the six competencies we identified encompass 88 per-
cent of the comments mentioned during the interviews.
the remaining 12 percent—fifty-three comments—in-
clude humility, health, balance, ambition, and intel-
ligence. although these other comments totaled 12
percent, no single subgroup or idea accounted for more
than 2 percent. a possible conclusion for the lack of
significance given to these important traits during the
course of the interviews is that at least some—for ex-
ample, intelligence and education—may be assumed
by the Ceos. When providing their responses, the
executives may consider at least some of these to be
prerequisites in advancing to the high ranks of the cor-
porate world and may not have felt the need to men-
tion them.
Improving Your Leadership
Quotient
the good news about our results is that all of the six
competencies can be improved. there are a number of
initiatives one can undertake to improve self- awareness:
personality tests, 360-degree evaluations, life jour-
ney and values exercises. Similarly we can hone our
moral compasses by discussing cases in which moral
values play a part, by doing action-oriented exercises,

must also inspire, visualize a compelling future, and
gain the loyalty of others: to persuade. Last, leaders
have to be able to rise from the ashes, to snatch vic-
tory from the jaws of defeat, to adapt, to persist: to
be tenacious.
In their own words, Ceos believe in the effectiveness
of wise, persuasive, and resilient leaders. Work on im-
proving these six competencies and you will be vastly
more effective. as euripides once said, “try first thyself
and after call in God.”
Modesto A. Maidique, PhD, is executive direc-
tor of the Center for Leadership in the College
of Business at Florida International University
(FIU) and the Alvah H. Chapman Jr. Eminent
Scholar in Leadership. From 1986 to 2009,
Maidique served as president of FIU and led its
transformation from a comprehensive univer-
sity to a major research university classified in
the highest ranking awarded by the Carnegie
Foundation. Under Maidique’s leadership, FIU
grew to more than forty thousand students and
established accredited Colleges of Medicine, Law,
Engineering, and Architecture. Prior to FIU,
Maidique held academic appointments at MIT,
Harvard, and Stanford Universities. He is the
coauthor or contributing author of ten books and
numerous articles.
w i n t e r 2 0 1 4 3 7

Candace Atamanik is research manager with the
Center for Leadership at Florida International
University. Her research focuses on leadership
development using a framework of personality,
values, and decision making. Candace has a mas-
ter of science degree in industrial/organizational
psychology from Florida International Univer-
sity and has presented peer-reviewed research at
conferences such as the Society for Industrial and
Organizational Psychology and the International
Leadership Association. Previously, Candace was
an adjunct professor of research methods and psy-
chological assessment for the Department of Psy-
chology at Florida International University.
Ruthann B. Perez is an adjunct research assis-
tant with the Center for Leadership at Florida
International University and a human resources
and business consultant, specializing in talent
management/workforce agility, career transition,
and change management throughout North and
South America. Ruthann has a master of sci-
ence degree in human resource management from
Florida International University. Previously she
worked as a general manager, heading business
units for large global organizations.

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