Great leaders aren't just confident and decisive — they also habitually lean on others, according to former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns.
Burns — who became the first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she took the helm of Xerox in 2009 — thinks all great leaders are good at identifying people with unique talents and relying on them in moments when they need a variety of expertise, told WSJ. Magazine in an interview published last week.
"Leadership is about bringing many people along," she said. "For every great success we had, certain people knew more about certain pieces of it than I did. I had to follow them as much as they had to follow me."
It isn't just to be nice. Enlisting people with different strengths and experiences helped her, and the company, make better decisions, Burns added. The strategy was particularly useful when she had to work on projects out of her comfort zone. In those cases, she said, leaders have to recognize their own strengths and limitations, then "build a team [and] get advice" to fill in the gaps.
"You have to engage more people to get the task done right," she said.
Burns is far from the only leader who wants to surround themselves with a diversity of thought. Kind Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky surrounds himself with people whose strengths are his weaknesses, he told CNBC Make It last year.
"You need to find complementary skills," he said. "If you're not good with the numbers, get somebody that's good with the numbers. If you're not creative, hire somebody that's creative."
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The tactic is good for business, research shows. Teams with inclusive bosses, or leaders that make their employees feel respected, valued and like they belong, are more collaborative and perform better, according to a 2018 Deloitte study.
Of course, to be invited into important meetings, presentations and conferences, you still need to keep up with work expectations, Burns clarified. By contrast, one of the biggest mistakes some leaders is keeping low-performers on deck for too long, she said, because it has the potential to drag teams down.
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"Not firing people who need to be fired [is a mistake]," Burns said. "The more senior I got, the more dangerous this inability for me to say, 'I'm going to give up on Joe' [became]."
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