I saw this tweet today and listened to the linked A16Z podcast. The episode itself talks about a number of topics but at around 26 minutes, Ben Horowitz expands on the two predictors of great management:

  1. Systems thinking - the ability to understand how one change affects another, and that almost everything is a system. Most people are not systems thinkers.

  2. Perspective - The ability to really see the people in your organization - to know who they are, what their motivations are - and understand implications of your actions through their eyes.

I couldn’t agree more. Taking a systems thinking approach to leadership is fundamental to the leadership lattice - the learning framework for management that I’ve written about a number of times.

Listen to the whole podcast on Soundcloud.