---
title: Leading While Walking Together (2) — A Good Leader's Fundamentals Aren't a Special Talent
url: https://oosioo.com/en/p/%ED%95%A8%EA%BB%98-%EA%B1%B7%EB%8A%94-%EB%A6%AC%EB%8D%94-2
date: 2026-10-21T08:34:35+00:00
author: SYSOP
summary: A good leader isn't someone who excels at one thing, but someone who has the five things from the earlier pieces as basics. The conditions of a good manager that Google found in its data weren't technical skills either.
---
# Leading While Walking Together (2) — A Good Leader's Fundamentals Aren't a Special Talent

Watching good leaders, I noticed something. A good leader wasn't someone with one overwhelming ability. It was someone who had the five things we've talked about so far as their basics.

| Chapter | A leader's fundamentals |
|---|---|
| Small wins | Breaks the vision into this week's goals |
| Added value | Has something that makes them hard to replace |
| Storytelling | Conveys meaning in the listener's language |
| Reciprocity | Hands the credit to the team first |
| Sharing | Doesn't hide things; lets everyone know together |

Talking about a big vision is easy. "We're going to be the best in the world." It sounds good. But if nobody knows what to do next week, it means nothing. Breaking the vision into concrete goals for this week is a leader's first job. If a leader is easily replaceable, there's no reason to follow them, and if they take credit for the team's work, people will do only the minimum. None of these five is a special talent. Anyone can do them with effort. It's just that few people keep doing them, and that seems to be why good leaders are rare.

## What Google Found

One company checked this with data. Google, the story goes, once doubted whether engineers really needed managers at all. So it analyzed large amounts of performance and survey data and reverse-engineered the difference between good and bad managers. Out came a list of the behaviors of great managers, and at the top were being a good coach, empowering the team and not micromanaging, and listening and communicating well. Even at a company of engineers, "having the technical skills to advise the team" came last on the list.

![A list of good-manager behaviors Google found, with being a good coach first and technical skills last](/uploads/ef6c951c0e8b0e4d.webp =720)

The message was clear. The core of a good leader wasn't technology but people. And it wasn't an inborn personality but concrete behaviors you can observe and learn. Leadership turned out to be a matter not of talent but of habit.

## People First

There was also a business leader who practiced this all his life. The founder of an American airline openly flipped the usual order of a company's priorities. Most companies put shareholders first, but he put employees first, customers second and shareholders last. His reasoning: "Employees who are treated well treat customers well, and the results come back to the shareholders." With this naive-looking order, the airline went on to stay profitable for decades in a row, something rarely seen in the industry. He proved, in the form of a company's order of priorities, the same conclusion Google reached: the core of a good leader is people, not technology.

In the next piece, I'll talk about the hardest of those habits: setting a direction when things are uncertain.