Who has had the most influence on your leadership skills over the course of your career?

Our reader poll today asks: Who has had the most influence on your leadership skills over the course of your career?

• A family member – 10%
• A boss I worked for directly – 54%
• A senior leader at levels above my boss – 11%
• A school coach or a teacher/professor – 8%
• A leadership expert/coach – 4%
• Someone else – 12%

Managers Matter. 65% of you report either a direct manager or a leader above them has had the greatest influence on your leadership skills. We can safely assume your team members would answer this question the same way. The next natural question, then, is whether or not your team members see you as having a great deal of influence on their leadership skills. What are you doing to help them become better leaders? Are you actively coaching and supporting them in their career development? Are you teaching them how to lead or are you just managing their activities? Managers clearly matter. Aspire to be the leader they point to in the future when they say “that person had a huge positive impact on my leadership skills.”

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.