Big Motor, Big Brain, Big Heart

Across many cultures, cooking is guided by a trinity or triad of core ingredients that form the foundation of countless dishes.

In Cajun and Creole cuisine, the holy trinity—onion, celery, and bell pepper—builds deep savory flavor, while French cooking often begins with mirepoix of onion, carrot, and celery. In Spanish and Latin American cooking, a similar base called sofrito may include onion, garlic, peppers, and tomatoes. Asian cuisines also reflect triads, such as the Chinese use of ginger, garlic, and scallions or the Indian balance of cumin, coriander, and turmeric.

Triads have also been applied to leadership development for years. I created one a couple of decades ago that I still use for hiring: character, competency, and chemistry.

Recently, I have been using another triad to score good executive leadership performance. Today’s best leaders have a big motor, a big brain, and a big heart.

Big Motor

Maya Angelou said, “Nothing will work unless you do.” Big-motor people don’t have to take that advice to heart because the idea is already their heartbeat. These are go-getters, high performers, task owners. Big-motor people don’t have to be told to get to work—they probably have to be told to take a break.

Big-motor leaders simply run at a higher RPM. They’re a race car, not a tractor. They go fast and far to get stuff done. They’re coming to the board or the boss with ideas. They finish the things they’ve committed to. Things look different after they’re around because they leave a wake.

Self-examination question: What was the last big project you initiated without being asked and finished despite obstacles?

Big Brain

It’s not much use to have a big motor if you’re running in the wrong direction. It’s actually pretty harmful. It wastes energy and resources, costing significant funds and time, pulling team members off more valuable projects and exhausting them in the process.

That’s why it matters to look for leaders with big brains—the great problem solvers and the passionate learners. Look for people who can receive data and quickly assess causes and effects. What got us to this point? What will be the results of the possible solutions we’re discussing? Think Matt Damon in The Martian.

But also like Matt Damon’s character in the film, big-brain people are both deep and wide. They have an area (or three) where they have deep knowledge. But they are also simply curious people—readers or podcast listeners or good conversationalists. They are on a ruthless learning quest. It is just who they are. 

Curiosity is an essential quality for the modern leader because the landscape is always changing, and you need to be a habitual learner. Plus, you never know where good ideas will come from.

Self-examination question: What do you know a good amount more about now than you did six months ago? Look for one example from work and one example that is not attached to your profession.

Big Heart

The author John Steinbeck said, “You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” So many organizational leaders have a mission they’re trying to achieve (big motor) or a problem they’re trying to solve (big brain), but they don’t serve the internal and external people correctly.

Most work gets done with and through people. Some industries require more humans, and some only need a few. But having a big heart that bends to the people in your orbit is part of sound leadership. Are you aware that your administrative assistant’s husband is in his second round of chemo? Do you know which middle managers feel like they have hit a glass ceiling in their job? What are you going to do with your CFO or district manager who is burning out—or did you even know it? The best leaders have empathy for those real people in their paths. 

Leaders with big hearts are the best collaborators because they listen to and understand partners, customers, and coworkers. They have empathy. Understandably, then, people want to work with them and for them.

Self-examination question: Who are the three people you work most closely with currently? How have they impacted the way you work (and live, if appropriate)?

Conclusion

Each of us favors one part of the motor-brain-heart triad and undervalues at least one of the three. That’s natural, but it causes problems if it goes unchecked. For example, the CEO who favors heart and the one who neglects heart are both hard to work for in the long term but for different reasons. One doesn’t push you enough, and the other pushes you too far.

But what if you get all three together? It’s like a perfect recipe: Three ingredients that have value on their own and may even taste OK individually, but put them together and you get a masterpiece, an entrée whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the CEO you want to work for, the company you want to invest in, the team you want to be a part of.

Are you that leader? How can you become more of that leader?