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• For each individual, determine how well you know them by
answering the following questions:
o What three non-business things do you know about this
person?
o What does this person value?
o What are this person’s top three concerns?
o What does this person want or hope for in life?
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o What does this person most enjoy doing at work?

Willingness to Take Risks and Be Innovative

The history of great leaders is the history of great risk takers. John Spence.

One of the key behaviors of effective leaders is the willingness to take
risks as they strive to be more creative. By definition, leaders are risk-
takers. If there is no risk, little leadership is required. If the effort is easy
and certain to succeed, anyone can, and probably will, “lead” it. But where

the effort involves a risk of failure, then many people will back away from
the challenge. Risk-taking leadership is necessary to get people to make
the commitment and the effort to succeed. Strong leaders are not afraid to
challenge the current situation. They don’t need to “run with the crowd.”

Leaders are pioneers – people who are willing to step out into the unknown.
They are people who are willing to take risks, to innovate and experiment in

order to find new and better ways of doing things. James M Kouzes and
Barry Z. Posner.

The attitude of effective leaders is that they are willing to embrace change
and newness. They welcome problems and might even seek them out,

meeting them as challenges and opportunities to improve the situation.
Certainly, working hard to achieving desired results is extremely difficult
when the situation is unstable, or the challenge is complex, or the direction
is unclear. Many of today’s organizational problems with respect to
leadership are critical and pressing; they demand quick and decisive
action. But at the same time, they are so complicated that it is dangerous to

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John C. Maxwell, The 5 Levels of Leadership, New York: Center Street, 2011, p. 125.
David Kolzow 85