"Leaders aren't born, they are made. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal which is worthwhile." — Vince Lombardi
If leaders are made, the obvious question is: made how? What separates the manager everyone wants to work for from the one everyone is quietly updating their résumé to escape?
Google set out to answer that with data. Its ongoing internal study, Project Oxygen, analyzed thousands of performance reviews, surveys, and manager evaluations to identify the behaviors that showed up again and again in its highest-performing managers. The findings were striking for what they didn't say. Technical brilliance wasn't the differentiator. The best managers were the ones who coached, communicated, and genuinely cared about the people on their teams.
At Institute Success, that conclusion matches what we see every day in the leaders we coach. So over the course of a year, we devoted a full article to each of Google's ten behaviors and translated the research into practical habits you can start using now. Here's the map.
The 10 Behaviors of a Great Leader
- Be a good coach. The best leaders speak less and listen more, ask powerful questions, and develop their people. Command-and-control is over.
- Empower your team — don't micromanage. Delegate real ownership, even at the risk of imperfect results. That's how trust and capability grow.
- Create an inclusive environment and show concern for success and well-being. Leaders who do this are far more likely to have an energized, engaged team.
- Be productive and results-oriented. Being busy isn't the same as being effective. Model focused work and protect it.
- Be a good communicator and listen to your team. Communication lives in the listener, not the speaker. Great leaders master active listening.
- Support career development and discuss performance. Investing in people's growth doesn't push them out the door — it keeps them.
- Have a clear vision and strategy for the team. When people can see the destination, they can see their part in reaching it.
- Possess key technical skills to help advise the team. You don't have to know everything — but you do have to know what you don't know.
- Collaborate across the organization. Silos kill performance. Interdependence builds it.
- Be a strong decision maker. Make prompt, well-considered decisions — and explain the why behind them.
Why This Matters for You
Notice the pattern. Eight of the ten behaviors are about how you relate to people, not how much you know. That's the heart of the Institute Success approach: leadership is communication, and communication is leadership.
The good news is that every one of these behaviors is learnable. You weren't born a great coach or a clear communicator any more than you were born knowing how to ride a bike. You practiced. Leadership is the same — a set of skills you can build deliberately, one behavior at a time.
Over the coming articles, we'll take each behavior in turn and show you how to put it to work. Start anywhere. Pick the one that would make the biggest difference for your team right now, and build from there.