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The Top Workplaces 2011 surveys allowed respondents to rate their bosses’ leadership skills.

Awards went to the best leaders at small, mid-size and large workplaces.

The News & Record asked each winner to provide the five most essential characteristics of a great leader.

Here’s an edited version of their comments.

Large Workplace

Leo Lambert , Elon University president

1. Leaders have to have vision. You have to describe the place that you want your institution to become and get people to believe in that vision. I think, in some very important respects, that is the essence of leadership.

If you can’t describe what it is you want to become and where you want to go, you are not going to get there. Leadership is about what you want to become and setting a strategic direction to get there.

2. Leaders have to put together a team that can carry out the vision. I am fond of saying around Elon that vision without execution is hallucination. You can vision things all day long, but if you don’t have a team — and in my case, it is a pretty big team, 1,100 people — all rowing in the same direction, you are not going to be able to get to where you want to go.

In higher education, I see so many institutions create strategic plans and then simply put them in drawers. Elon’s success is that we execute our plans. We do what we say we are going to do. That is very important because when people see a vision being realized, that builds credibility and trust and ultimately, I think, more buy-in when the institution sets off on newer and even more ambitious goals.

3. It’s important for leaders to remember that it’s not about you. In my case, it’s about students and their learning. When I say it is about students, I don’t mean in a coddling sense. My job is to help create an environment in which students are going to be challenged and prepared to go out in the world and lead meaningful lives and make important contributions.

It is so easy for universities to lose sight of what they are about. You can easily get your priorities skewed. When we have an important decision to make, the question we always come down to is what is best for the students and their learning. As long as we have that central tenet guiding us, I think we are going to be successful.

4. At Elon, we live by an honor code. It has four words: honesty, integrity, respect and responsibility. Leaders of institutions need to act by that same code. They set the example for students. If that doesn’t happen, nothing else much matters.

5. Have fun! I have been in this job almost 13 years, and I have looked forward to every day of it. Being around 18- to 22-year-olds every day brings an enormous sense of energy to the campus. I think that transfers to me.

But more important, I come to work each day knowing that this institution is preparing leaders for tomorrow. I come to work every day with a sense of hope and a sense of optimism, a sense of challenge, which to me translates to having fun. If the leader is not having fun, nobody else is either.

Mid-size Workplace

Kent Auberry, partner in charge of the Greensboro office of Smith Moore Leatherwood

I thought about five individual leaders I have worked with in the past and the unique things they brought (to the task).

1. Jan Brittain, senior pastor, Christ United Methodist Church. She has a clear sense of vision and mission and the ability to articulate and inspire on that vision. I think a church, like any organization, can drift. You can go through the motions dealing with the day-to-day (stuff). Vision has to be communicated well, and you have to inspire your team with that vision and mission.

2. Steve Earp , former managing partner at Smith Moore Leatherwood. A law firm is a collection of cats. In some ways, we are very independent sorts. I don’t know how he did it, but he had the ability to strike the balance between building consensus and avoiding paralysis. There was an openness to listen to the different viewpoints, making people feel part of the process and valued in their contributions, but at the end of the day realizing that decisions had to be made and moving forward. It is a balance between the process and the goal, not letting either overwhelm the other.

3. Lanty Smith, a North Carolina business leader. Lanty has recognized the talents of others and had a willingness to foster that talent and delegate to them. Through a number of business ventures, he could have been the top guy himself. He has found individuals, usually in the organization, and given them the room to flourish, even though he has far more experience and wealth of talent himself. I have seen him do this in start-up ventures and mature ventures, to pick an individual in a leadership role, to allow them to make their own mistakes and to learn and to grow.

4. Suzanne Kasper, former president of the Page Band Boosters. I saw how she really managed the letting-go of personal agendas in favor of the broader good of the enterprise. You can get a lot of politics in volunteer organizations. Sometimes people are worried about personal egos and the way they want to do things. (It’s better) when you have someone who is totally selfless as far as her ego is concerned. She stepped back and took a bigger look at what was best for the organization.

5. Horace Auberry, my late father. He rose through the ranks to become chairman and CEO of a shoe company in western North Carolina . What I observed consistently was a cool head and a focus in the face of adversity, and when the world laughs at your plans, being able to rethink and regroup.

I remember once when the facility burned down. The question was whether the business would just fold. He contacted another company to arrange for borrowing capacity to get the company running within a month.

When my father started with the company, they made slippers. It became apparent that no American company could stay in business making slippers. He retooled it into a company making boots. That was in the 1970s. They made boots used in Vietnam and Desert Storm.

Small Workplace

Richard F. Wagner Jr. , president and CEO of Piedmont Federal Savings Bank

1. I think the essential characteristic of leadership is a genuine concern for people. It is being concerned about our customers and our fellow employees and even our competition.

It has to be a genuine concern or people can see right through it. You are not concerned about the utility of that relationship. It gets down to the individual level and their well-being.

Competition is healthy as long as you have a level playing field. You don’t wish any competitor ill will. You go out each day and compete as best you can. Hopefully, that rewards you for that process of care and concern.

2. Having a clear understanding of a company’s vision, mission and values. Piedmont Federal has a vision, mission and values statement that states why we are here, what we are up to and what we hope to accomplish as a business. You need to clearly communicate that, especially to the employees and to the community. And you need to re-evaluate it. As time goes on, those components can change.

3. Provide an environment for employees to take ownership of what they do and reward them for good performance. I think that is where you try to match an individual’s goals and aspirations to an organization’s aspirations. If you can bring those two together, then you have created a good situation for both the employee and the company.
Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses, and if you can match those with the objectives of the company, the better off you will be. The happier the employees are, the more productive they are going to be, the better ambassadors they are going to be for your organization.

Everybody I know needs to work. You spend so much time here, you need to make it as pleasant as possible. It boils down to the Golden Rule : Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

4. Humility. The higher you go in an organization, the more of a servant you become. A lot of people think that if you get to be the top person in an organization, you basically are served. Delegation is a key role of an executive, but you also have to learn that the more responsibility you have, the more of a servant you become to those around you. You have to be humble but in a sincere fashion.

5. Make decisions and take action. You want to gather all the input you can from as many (sources) as you can, but there comes a point when you have to take action and be ready to adjust as the situation or decision evolves. You surround yourself with good people to help you in that decision-making process.

In that respect, we are very fortunate at Piedmont Federal. It is all a group effort, pulling together to accomplish common goals and objectives.

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com.