What Makes a Great Leader?

Leaders face inherent emotional and intellectual challenges in innovating at scale, including navigating increased shareholder expectations, complex global execution, and the need for digital transformation. Based on a decade of research, the authors have defined a new type of leadership necessary for "scaling genius," a mixture of skills that spark innovation within an organization and across external ecosystems. Tomorrow's executives must master three key roles—architect, bridger, and catalyst, or ABCs—to access the talent and tools they need to drive innovation and impact. As architects, they build the culture and capabilities for innovation. As bridgers, they curate and enable networks of talent inside and outside their organizations to co-create. And as catalysts, they lead beyond their organizational boundaries to energize and activate co-creation across entire ecosystems. These ABCs require leaders to stop relying on formal authority as their source of power and shift to a style that enables diverse talent to collaborate, experiment, and learn together—a challenging yet essential personal transformation. Drawing on real-life examples from Mastercard, Delta, Pfizer, and more, the authors expand on how these characteristics can help leaders move ideas to impact—fast. INSET: What Great Leadership Means to HBR Readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]