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Let us continue to work on the list of leaders you have. Note that everyone is a leader, they just fall into one of two buckets. You may be tempted to have more than two buckets and to stack rank within a bucket. If you can’t restrain yourself, go ahead, but that is not necessary.

There are two kinds of “connections” your leaders need to make:

• Connect the dots: They need to see patterns in random events, see cause and effect relationships, extrapolate, work backwards from the end in mind, and process the big and the small pictures. In essence, this refers to their ability to solve problems.
• Connect with people: A typical workplace will have multiple personalities, some warm and fuzzy, others prickly and abrasive. Add to that unpredictable behaviors and mood swings, and now you have a volatile cocktail. Your leaders need to work smoothly and easily with a wide variety of personalities, be productive and make their co-workers productive as well.

Without judgment, gather evidence to score your leaders on these two criteria. Set your opinion aside as you do this.

Based on your new insights, move your leaders from one list to the other if necessary.