{"id":3448,"date":"2025-04-01T13:45:46","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T13:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3448"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:11:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:11:34","slug":"three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Key Behaviors of Successful Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

The best leaders focus on building great relationships, clearly structuring their own and team members\u2019 work tasks and objectives, and creating a good context for communication, according to Academy of Management Scholar Sean Martin of the University of Virginia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Martin said those are the three most essential behaviors for effective leaders. His research indicates that upwardly mobile people from lower-class backgrounds often make for the best leaders because those actions come more naturally to them compared to more privileged professionals.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because somebody comes from a more privileged background doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re narcissistic and self-centered, but the tendency is higher in those groups to be that way,\u201d Martin said. \u201cA lot of this has to come down to what kind of a filter we have in terms of how we evaluate people and who we promote, which gets back to the question about what true leadership is compared to just being a star or a boss.<\/p>\n

\u201cStar performers often get promoted because they seem individually excellent, but that\u2019s not really accounting for whether they are actually leading people or doing those important leadership behaviors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy research would suggest that if you want a higher likelihood of getting people who are particularly likely to engage in those sorts of things, you might do well to look for folks who don\u2019t come from a background of high privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n

While relationship building, clear structuring of the workday, and effective communication are all foundational leadership behaviors, not all of them are equally important in every context, Martin noted. For instance, in a manufacturing context with assembly lines and fairly straightforward work to be done, task orientation and clearly structuring the work might be much less important, because it\u2019s very clear what tasks employees should be doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, relationship building is likely to be crucial, and communication might be enormously important too, because the job itself might not be inherently fulfilling, so employees need to find fulfillment more from the social realm and the connections with people around them,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the flip side, if everybody\u2019s remote, you might actually need to engage quite a bit in structuring the work for people to make sure that it\u2019s very clear what managers are evaluating, what everybody\u2019s task is, when someone should pass on the work they\u2019re doing to somebody else, how all of the work that we\u2019re doing rolls up to support the whole strategic plan for the organization, and that might be extremely important in terms of building relationships,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few organizations are clear when it comes to communication related to change orientation, which requires having a good vision, creating the context for people to speak up and sharing ideas and problems to influence leaders\u2019 vision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher The best leaders focus on building great relationships, clearly structuring their own and team members\u2019 work tasks and objectives, and creating a good context for communication, according to Academy of Management Scholar Sean Martin of the University of Virginia. Martin said those are the three most essential behaviors for effective leaders. His […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,19],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-leadership"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThree Key Behaviors of Successful Leaders - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Three Key Behaviors of Successful Leaders\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-01T13:45:46+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:11:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":475,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"BEHAVIOR\",\"LEADERSHIP\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/three-key-behaviors-of-successful-leaders-2\\\/\",\"name\":\"Three Key Behaviors of Successful Leaders - 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You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work.webp",1080,720,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work.webp",1080,720,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work.webp",1080,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work-1024x683.webp",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work.webp",1080,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work.webp",1080,720,false],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work-600x400.webp",600,400,true],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work-350x450.webp",350,450,true],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/leader-uses-new-knowledge-at-work-100x100.webp",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":2,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/behavior\/\" rel=\"category tag\">BEHAVIOR<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/leadership\/\" rel=\"category tag\">LEADERSHIP<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher The best leaders focus on building great relationships, clearly structuring their own and team members\u2019 work tasks and objectives, and creating a good context for communication, according to Academy of Management Scholar Sean Martin of the University of Virginia. Martin said those are the three most essential behaviors for effective leaders. 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