Feelings of guilt may signal leadership potential (2012)
In an ideal world maybe. And even then it would probably be one of the least important traits in modern leadership roles.<p>In reality I suspect it&#x27;s quite hard to have high levels of guilt and be a leader. At least recognising one&#x27;s mistakes and taking responsibility for them is something that doesn&#x27;t tend to be rewarded in the corporate world. It&#x27;s probably better to have low guilt and be better at reframing mistakes as small set backs. To not do this risks looking incapable.<p>But anyway, good social skills and extraversion seems to be by far the most important traits for leadership positions. You also need to have a elevated self-confidence in your own opinions, at least this is true within a lot of corporate environments.<p>But I guess I never really understood the leadership thing. I think it would be better to replace the whole concept of &quot;leaders&quot; and replace them with &quot;orchestrators&quot; of teams. Good &quot;leadership&quot; decisions in my opinion are really about good delegation and organisation of a team&#x27;s resources, you shouldn&#x27;t really be taking &quot;lead&quot; in any actual decision making, you should just &quot;lead&quot; the orchestration. Decision making should be done by the most equipped individuals of a team. Leadership goes wrong when a leader makes too many decisions, it doesn&#x27;t really matter if they feel guilty for making a bad decision if they shouldn&#x27;t have made them in the first place.