It’s time to ‘Get off the Sidelines’ in Leadership
The sweet spot in leading is the overlap of what you are good at, what you like, and what the world needs. Getting there might require developing new skills and leaving your comfort zone.
I see five critical traits that help create a successful leader, which I will explore:
•A sense of purpose, duty, and service
•Empathy: a high level of compassion, humility, and humanity
•More courage
•The ability to inspire and show moral leadership
•Seeking transformative partnerships
We need leaders who are the opposite of the old “company man” who coldly maximizes profits, and who instead embrace being more vulnerable, open, caring, empathetic, and human. Today’s leaders should encourage their staff to come up with challenging business ideas, willing to implement the ideas as part of new strategies. Leaders should accept people who come to work to apply their talents and their skills. These talents seek opportunities to grow and be accepted as contributors.
Organizations should strive for those traits as well. The obsession with shareholder value has turned businesses into soulless money machines. It’s all numbers, statistics, and profits. Companies have become robotic, valuing only contractual relationships instead of open, trusting partnerships.
I believe that a business is and should be human, with real people serving the needs of other real people. If we start with people as the core of business - not with the pursuit of short-term profits - then the first step in building a more human business is to look inward to find the strength to change how business works.
A company can only head toward positive trends if it has leaders courageous enough to challenge business as usual, has leaders who understand that profit should come not from creating the world’s problems, but from solving them.
How can we keep earning when the world is burning? The solutions to many of our challenges are available, and there is capital to invest. What’s stopping us? Part of the answer is that resistance is high, from both inertia and vested interests. So, finally, leaders need determination to fight through the roadblocks. Willpower comes from cultivating positive leadership principles, such as purpose, humility, and courage.
Underlying those traits, basic human values can be our guide and foundation of a new kind of leadership: justice, compassion, dignity, and respect its Golden Rule (the ethical principle of treating others as you would like to be treated yourself) again. When you know what the right thing to do is, you’ll find the courage to take a stand.
In conclusion, I would like to quote the last paragraph of a letter Mr. Robinson Valenzona wrote in the ‘Inquirer’ on 23 March 2026: “When we are kind, we tend to see injustices around us, and recognize inequalities, bullying, and abuse, and act on them. Sometimes, power means having enough to give and protect everyone under your wings, not pushing them and letting them down when they are asking to be saved.”
It’s really time to Get off the Sidelines, I am looking forward to receiving your views! Contact me at [email protected]
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