There are rules to most games, just as there are winners and losers. In business, these factors are also evident, and effective leadership, for which there are five major rules, is a key strategy that organizations need to win.

Google the words “leader” and “leadership,” and there are some 487 million hits. That’s an awful lot of information to answer one simple but essential question: What attributes are necessary for leaders to actually generate strategic business results?

Our research at The RBL Group has uncovered a leadership code (Figure 1) — five key attributes or rules shared by the majority of effective leaders.

To get there, we turned to recognized experts in the field who had already spent years sifting through the evidence and developing their own theories. These thought leaders have each published a theory of leadership based on a long history of research and empirical assessment of what makes effective leadership. Collectively, they have written more than 50 books on leadership and performed more than 2 million leadership 360s.
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Discussions with them focused on two questions whose answers always had been elusive:

1. What percent of effective leadership is basically the same?
2. If there are common rules that all leaders must master, what are they?

Does an effective leader at, say, Wal-Mart in any way resemble an effective leader at Virgin Airlines? Does an effective leader in a bootstrapping NGO in any way resemble an effective leader at the famously bureaucratic United Nations? Does an effective leader in an emerging market resemble an effective leader in a mature market?

In response to the first question, our experts told us that 60 to 70 percent of leadership is basically the same everywhere. To find the answer to the second question, we synthesized data, interviews and our own research and experience, and the leadership code framework emerged.

Rule 1: Shape the future. This rule is embodied in the strategist dimension of the leader. Strategists answer the question “Where are we going?” and make sure those around them understand the direction as well. They envision and can create a future. They figure out where the organization needs to go to succeed, test ideas pragmatically against current resources — money, people, organizational capabilities — and work with others to figure out how to get from the present to the desired future. The rules for strategists are about creating, defining and delivering principles of what can be.