"Personal attributes are just one small slice of the leadership pie, and their value is greatly diminished without know-how, the eight interrelated skills that bring leadership into the realm of profit and loss."

Think back to a time when you encountered someone who seemed admirable for their intelligence, charisma, bold vision and great presentation skills -- a person whose intelligence later was revealed to be short-sighted, whose charisma turned out to be showmanship, whose bold vision lacked follow-up, and whose presentation skills amounted to nothing except hot air.

Ram Charan's "Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don't" could be about politics or about any meaningful human endeavor. Instead, it is about business. Charan's insights have made him a renowned figure in the realm of corporate consultancy, and his work has garnered praise from leaders such as GE's Jack Welch and "Seven Habits" guru Stephen R. Covey.

Judgment and leadership

Many of us, including smart business leaders, can confuse personality traits with leadership skills. Charan shows how to avoid the pitfalls of launching a promising person on the leadership track, only to meet with disaster down the line.

He doesn't discount the value of such traits, but Charan demonstrates how they can be viewed as positive signals to encourage a broader, deeper look into what makes a successful leader. Here are the signposts to watch for when gauging desirable traits in a leader:

Ambition -- to achieve but not to win at all costs.
• Drive and tenacity -- to search and persist, but not to hold on too long.
• Self-confidence -- to overcome fear of failure but not to become arrogant.
• Psychological openness -- to be receptive to new ideas and not shut people down.
• Realism -- to see what can be accomplished but not gloss over problems.
• Appetite for learning -- to continue to grow and improve and not repeat mistakes.

Indeed, anyone can benefit from reviewing the above list from time to time in their quest for success -- not just in business but in life. This may be what Charan's admirers mean when they say he is a wise man.

"Certainly intelligence, self-confidence, presence, the ability to communicate, and having a vision are important," Charan writes. "But being highly intelligent doesn't mean that a person has the knack for making good business judgments."

Leaders will be constantly tested and retested for their ability to lead their business in the right direction, Charan says. Looking at a range of examples from huge companies like GE and Wal-mart down to small mom-and-pop operations, the author shows how successful leaders do the right things, make the right decisions, deliver results, and leave their businesses and the people in them better off than they were before.

Charan outlines the key cognitive traits that are essential for know-how:

A wide range of altitudes -- to transition from the conceptual to the specific. Think of it as the ability to view the functioning of a business from the highest echelons to the down-on-the-ground activities.
• A broad cognitive bandwidth -- to take in a broad range of input and see the big picture. "Cognitive bandwidth" is a term that the author uses over and over, stressing its importance in ever-evolving 21^st century patterns of business. Always look for the next emerging trend coming around the corner.
• Ability to reframe -- to see things from different perspectives. One of the worst mistakes a manager can make is to think in a linear way. Listen to others in the organization, remain open to new ideas, and never view a person as "someone who can do no right" or "someone who can do no wrong."

The future in one word: reposition

The importance of repositioning a business is a lesson one can learn anywhere -- just look around. Many books have been written on this topic. Charan probes deeper into this phenomenon, with an insider's view of real-world examples. While his lessons are of value, they don't always contain hard answers. There is no such thing as a hard answer in a fast-changing, incredibly complex world where new challenges await every day.

One industry where the value of repositioning is readily apparent is newspapers. Hardly a day goes by without a breaking story about the ongoing saga of the nation's turbulent, declining newspaper industry. Even the iconic New York Times is not immune from the struggle to stay afloat amid a sea of newly-emerging technologies, shareholder demands, advertising losses, and consumer expectations.

Charan does not offer any easy answers, but he does point out the critical nature of what can happen when an industry does not respond immediately (if not sooner) to signals of change (both internal and external) relevant to its survival. There is always hope that a business can rally and emerge successful after a disastrous trough -- but it will take masterful leadership to make it happen.

The itinerant consultant

Ram Charan is an enigma. He's a world-renowned speaker and advisor who has for more than 35 years worked behind the scenes in close consultancy with the CEOs of companies like GE, Bank of America, DuPont, Novartis, Home Depot and Verizon. Yet he has no personal Web site, newsletter, or dynamic leadership seminars.

In "Know-How," Charan shares a remembrance of childhood in his native India where he worked in his father's small shoe shop. The young Charan recalls an early lesson in business: If there was no money in the till at the end of the day, the family didn't eat.

Later, after he earned an engineering degree and went to work for a company in Australia, he impressed his superiors with his astute mind and ability to range beyond his specialty to capture "the big picture." He went on to earn an MBA at Harvard, where he taught for six years.

For most of his adult life he has been an itinerant business consultant. He has no home, although he keeps an office in Dallas. His work with business clients around the world keeps him constantly on the move, staying in hotels, toting his belongings in suitcases. His clients say he is unusually dependable, accessible and committed to his work. One story has it that on September 11, 2001, Charan became stranded in Philadelphia. He managed to hire a car and driver and made his way to his next scheduled appointment a few days' drive away.

His past successful books "Execution" and "What the CEO Wants You to Know" have drawn a faithful following of CEOs, managers and business students who are eager to hear Charan's thoughts about emerging business trends. With the success of "Know-How," he is garnering more fans and is, in fact, becoming something of a cult figure among business consultants.

Bottom line:

Here are the eight essential skills Ram Charan considers essential for effective business leadership:

Ability to nimbly position and reposition the business
• Ability to detect and pinpoint external changes relevant to the business
• Ability to achieve better results by taking the reins of the business's social system
• Ability to judge and assess people and match them to their job demands
• Ability to mold an effective team
• Ability to set ambitious yet realistic goals
• Ability to establish laser-sharp priorities to achieve the predetermined goals
• Ability to anticipate and respond to social forces that can affect the business