Powerful Lessons From TED Talks About Leadership

What does it take to be an incredible leader? 

In an interesting series of talks, business leaders, researchers, a famed general, and an orchestra conductor tackle that question from their diverse viewpoints.

What makes an awesome leader in today's world? Answers from the likes of Sheryl Sandberg and Simon Sinek.

Some of their answers will shock you. Here are few of their best lessons.

•  Let people tell their own stories. Orchestra conductor Itay Talgam uses video clips in his talk to display the vastly different leadership styles of some of the world's greatest conductors. The most effective elicit the best music by getting out of the way and letting their people shine. He also shares some important lessons such as "Never look at the trombones--it only encourages them."

• It takes new skills to be a great leader in today's world. Even though there are more leadership programs than ever before, leaders are seeing alarming failures, reports Roselinde Torres, senior partner and managing director at the consulting firm BCG in her thought-provoking talk. The reason is that in the globalized, digitized, fast-moving 21st century,

 "relying on traditional development practices will stunt your growth as a leader," she says.       Instead, today’s great leaders need three capabilities, she says. First, they need to be able to watch and distill trends so that they can see the future and prepare for it. Second, they need to develop relationships with people very different from themselves–people outside their own comfort zones. And third, they must be willing to abandon practices that have been successful in the past. That's tough to do, she says. "It's a leap, not a step." But if you can do it, you'll find you have followers.

• Be willing to learn from anyone. Four-star general Stanley McChrystal is the former commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan. But, as he explains in his powerful talk, entering into warfare in a post-9/11 world meant using unfamiliar new technology and striving for ways to build camaraderie with soldiers hundreds or thousands of miles away

Learning to lead a 21st-century fighting force created what McChrystal calls "an inversion of expertise," because many of the younger soldiers under his command understood the technology and the communication channels of the digital world much better than he did.

"It forced me to become a lot more transparent, a lot more willing to listen, a lot more willing to be reverse-mentored from lower," he says. 

Even worse than that is the fact that women judge themselves more harshly than men do and are less likely to consider ourselves qualified for that promotion or plum job. Women are slower to raise a hand and quicker to put it down again, and liable to take a seat away from the tables of power.