Years ago, ASEA Founder Tyler Norton had a great mentor who handed him a tattered, written-in book. Its title was The Leadership Challenge. In its pages, Tyler would find something that would help shape the way he looked at leadership and the way he sought to develop it. 

“Leaders aren’t necessarily born,” Tyler explains. “It’s a skill that you develop over time as you become more adept at seeing and understanding how people work.”

Tyler still holds dear the things he learned as he dived into the book—principles he embraced hungrily, driven at the time to learn the art of leadership.

“I had been told that I was the youngest general manager in the history of the company, and I was scared to death,” he admits. “I was in a job I shouldn’t have been in, and I really felt a need to up-level my leadership skills.”

What Tyler found as he furthered his learning by following the authors of the book was that they had been doing studies since the 1980s on leadership. Their survey, conducted every few years for decades, focuses on a long list of characteristics that people look for and trust in a leader.

“What makes this such a fascinating study is that they now have data on responses not only back to 1987, but from every continent in the world and across a broad range of economic realities,” Tyler marvels. 

In episode 4 of his Corporate Soul podcast, Tyler goes into the specifics of the study and shares what has been found over and over again and how that relates to how he does business today.

“Good leaders enable others to act,” Tyler explains. “Leadership is the art of mobilizing—moving a group of people who want to struggle for a shared vision.” 

For details on the characteristics of admired leaders and tips on giving yourself an assessment, tune in to Corporate Soul, Episode 4: The Defining Traits of Leadership on your ASEA Connect app!