Leadership Traits Decoded
Leadership is shifting - and so are the demands on today’s leaders.
Join Cynthia Kyriazis and Andrea Martin as they spotlight a core leadership trait, exploring how it meets the evolving challenges of today’s workplace.
Through candid, practical conversations, they unpack how each trait influences culture, drives development, and creates the conditions for growth and performance in modern organizations.
Learn more at www.plllab.com.
Leadership Traits Decoded
Pattern Recognition - The Leadership Skill That Sees What Others Miss
What if you could spot challenges and opportunities before anyone else saw them coming?
Pattern recognition enables leaders to identify trends, make informed decisions, and anticipate issues before they emerge, making it a critical component of strategic leadership.
In this episode of Leadership Traits Decoded, Cynthia Kiriazis and Drea Martin explore how this cognitive ability shapes organizational success and what happens when leaders struggle with it.
They cover:
• How pattern recognition helps leaders make faster, better decisions and prevent problems from becoming systemic
• Why connecting dots across people, performance, and market dynamics creates a strategic edge
• The hidden risk: leaders with low pattern recognition often don’t realize what they’re missing
• Development strategies - from pairing with pattern-savvy colleagues to structured peer coaching
• How junior leaders can grow by actively seeking feedback from strategic teammates
• Why seasoned executives may need support systems to compensate for blind spots
• When redistributing responsibilities is the smartest move if development plateaus
The conversation also uncovers a universal truth about leadership development: some traits are harder to teach than others, requiring patience, self-awareness, and the humility to lean on team members with complementary strengths.
Ready to explore your leadership traits? Connect with us on LinkedIn or visit www.plllab.com to see how we transform leadership intelligence into return-driven action.
Welcome to Leadership Traits Decoded. I'm Cynthia Kiriazis, Chief Experience Officer at the Culture Think Tank.
Drea Martin:And I'm Drea Martin, Product Owner of the Crucible. We are collaborative partners at Performance Leadership Learning Lab, where we transform leadership intelligence into return-driven action.
Cynthia Kyriazis:Today, we're unpacking the leadership traits essential for building, investing in and scaling successful companies. Our insights come directly from data-driven metrics within our platform's solution, so let's dive in.
Drea Martin:All right, hello. How are you doing today, cynthia?
Cynthia Kyriazis:Hello Drea, I'm good. How are you doing in this heat wave that we happen to be having here in the summer?
Drea Martin:Yeah, a little miserable, but that's all right, it'll go away.
Cynthia Kyriazis:That's what I say. It'll go away soon. I was looking at the list of our traits that we can cover during the length of this podcast series and I came across one that I thought was kind of interesting. And it's only interesting to me. I don't know that much about it other than how it affects me personally. And it's only interesting to me. I don't know that much about it other than how it affects me personally. Great, I thought maybe we could talk about pattern recognition as a trait. What do you?
Drea Martin:think, yeah, that sounds great, we can dive in. Do you want to start? Do you want to define it, or you want me to take a stab at it?
Cynthia Kyriazis:Well, I think for the most part it speaks for itself in the title Right. What I'd like to know is what are the benefits of that? Because I could see, I could think of several, but I'm not the expert on pattern recognition. So can you tell me what types of benefits evolve from that trait, our shared tool?
Drea Martin:And it's because being able to identify recurring themes or trends or structures means that you're able to then pick up on things that allow you to make faster or more informed decisions, to make sure that problems don't become systemic, to make sure that you're anticipating challenges or opportunities, maybe before they've even fully emerged. There's many different benefits. It might even be connecting the dots across people and performance and market dynamics, or recognizing familiar dynamics and new or unfamiliar environments. There's many benefits, so that's why it's an area that is great to see strengthen.
Cynthia Kyriazis:That's really interesting because, as you were saying that, what really kind of hit me was there are some of the things you said in there where pattern recognition would be a great thing if you were a strategic leader. If your focus was not on day-to-day necessarily although it would be good there but if your focus was in some way connected to strategy, I thought I think that would be awesome.
Drea Martin:Is it Definitely? It's definitely an important component of any kind of strategic perspective, which is, I know, another area that we measure and dive into, but it's part of the equipping. The information behind that strategy is this ability to recognize patterns, if there is a high performer and they're challenged by pattern recognition.
Cynthia Kyriazis:A high performer on the leadership team and they're challenged by this. What would you do with that?
Drea Martin:Yeah.
Drea Martin:So that's an interesting area because the greatest challenge that someone with low pattern recognition likely faces is the fact that if you don't recognize patterns well to begin with, you might not recognize that you're missing some of the interdynamics and things that are going on behind the scenes.
Drea Martin:So the greatest challenge, I'd say, is that first awareness step of even knowing like, hey, this isn't something that you're particularly strong in, and that's where a tool like ours really comes in and gives them that information of hey, you're not paying attention maybe, to these situations or this doesn't come naturally to you, and then that would be a place there to look at how can we actually implement. And maybe it's pairing them with someone who has that inclination towards recognizing patterns, or even taking a current situation and partnering up with a more strategic leader or with someone who can point out hey, this might be what's going on, and here are ways to identify things like this, going forward and really do that hands-on teaching of showing you here's your current situation, here are things that you might have missed and here's how you can make sure that these aren't things that fall below kind of your attention zone in the future.
Cynthia Kyriazis:So that's great information. That would take the supervisor manager, whoever's overseeing this particular member of the leadership team, and say we recognize that this may not be your strong suit, but we also think it's an important area for what you see, what you do, what you oversee, and these are a couple ways to step forward in learning. Then let's assume everybody goes their own way and this individual is trying to improve their pattern recognition because they understand the importance of it. What if they come back and they're still struggling? What would be like a second approach or step?
Drea Martin:Oh, that's a good question and that's a tough one because I know and something we've talked about quite a bit kind of behind the scenes and can bring into this podcast here is how some traits are much more easily taught than others might be. And I think the toughest part with this one is really that keeping top of mind if something is missing. So, if somebody is still not quite seeing that and this will depend on what level they are within an organization as well if they're a particularly seasoned leader, being able to see around the corners and see some of these interdynamics as even more important than, say, they're a junior person who has more strategic, focused members on their team and is simply trying to learn and adapt to this skill. So if they're one of those more junior people, I'd say keep at it. Remember that this is an area of development. Bring this up if you're doing any kind of executive coaching, kind of training to develop there further, to dig into this area and to keep asking the people around you what they're seeing, to make sure that you're in tune to what other people who might be more naturally inclined are picking up on.
Drea Martin:But if you're a more seasoned leader, who's really supposed to be the person who's in charge of this, I'd say taking kind of a halt, going back, doing that session again where you look at what's happening, what has to be happening, and really leaning into communication. I know we talked about communication last episode, but it comes up again and again because it is that aspect of if you don't see the patterns, that's one thing. But if you can talk to people around you who see them or get advisors and other people involved who can alert you to things going on, this is an area that, while it's important, things don't break unless you're trying to do this all alone and you don't have the skill. So it's leaning on the people around you at that point and seeing if you can train it and if it's not something that comes, making sure that you always have someone in your corner who's got this and is keeping an awareness on this area.
Cynthia Kyriazis:So I love what you say in terms of the concept of let's send it out to the group and get some feedback about how this person is doing and if they're improving, and that would be a true approach, a good approach, an effective approach for any trait that we talk about. But, of course, much more difficult if one doesn't see it, if one doesn't come to it, naturally. But I'm going to throw you a curveball Okay, yeah, great. What if there is somebody on the leadership team that is really good at this? The leader has, the CEO has, the option of saying, okay, jim is really good at this, but Ron is not. How about we pair up Jim and Ron together as peers to have like a internal coaching with somebody like that, assuming that you know that would work for the project and the leadership team and the individuals involved? What about sharing at that level, just between those two people?
Drea Martin:Yeah, I think that's an incredible situation to just facilitate and foster that learning environment, especially for Ron. I think an important thing to remember if you are that executive who's getting that extra support is putting your ego aside, realizing that this is an area you can grow in and taking advantage of the fact that you're working with a leader who's trying to put you in a situation where you get access to this information and have this mentor or co-worker who can kind of facilitate that extra training.
Cynthia Kyriazis:Okay, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, anything else you want to add to this particular trait? Otherwise, we've got plenty more coming Certainly.
Drea Martin:Yeah, I think that's a good wrap. On pattern recognition, I guess I wonder is there any other kind of development area for this that you could see someone diving into? I know you mentioned this curveball, having co-workers kind of support each other, but anything else you can imagine in that kind of development space?
Cynthia Kyriazis:Actually. No, I mean as a coach you're doing. The actions that we've talked about are the actions of recognize what the issue is, see if the person recognizes the issue, see what kind of help they need, offer that help, see if that help works and then, if it does, practice, practice, practice. If it doesn't, then find another way. You know, the only thing I can think of is that the CEO becomes the person that trains this individual. Let's say he called him on this individual. Let's say he called him on I'm not sure the CEO has time to do that, or they feel that maybe it's a peer that would be more effective, or maybe it's just a community effort in getting feedback from it. So I think we've covered everything that we could do to help that individual, and not just with this but with any trait that perhaps an individual doesn't even realize that they don't have it. They might realize what I'm not quote unquote strong in, but they might not realize that they have very little of a given trait. So it's an education process with support always.
Drea Martin:Awesome, yeah, just want to pick your brain in case. I know from your years of executive coaching. But awesome, great. Then one final thing here would be just giving a little recap on what we talked about in this episode. Do you want to kick us off?
Cynthia Kyriazis:Well, I was just thinking about the takeaway from the cultural side, from the people metrics side of our platform. The takeaway is for the leader to recognize and be patient when they see any type of developmental need. When you have an individual on your team who isn't as good at something as someone else, it doesn't mean they can't be. It means they need to be helped and it's an opportunity to develop that individual.
Drea Martin:What about you Exactly? Yeah, I mean definitely highlighting that, this notion of, especially for the individual who's getting the opportunity to be developed, making sure they're taking advantage of that situation and making the most of this learning opportunity not taking it personally, rather taking as a chance to kind of grow and then also noting for the ceo who's maybe dealing with someone who just can't get it and doesn't get it over and over again, that if you have someone else on your team you can lean on. Lean on that person instead. Sometimes passing on those responsibilities is the best move when you're just at a point where someone's not sticking with it.
Cynthia Kyriazis:Awesome. Okay, another great learning experience for me on traits and how the people metrics impact the cultural metrics and the financial metrics. So thank you, ms Drea, for all of your wonderful information and your insights, and I look forward to our next topic. Me too. Thanks, cynthia. Thanks for listening to this episode of Leadership Traits Decoded. You'll be able to find all our episodes on the Performance Leadership Learning Lab website at wwwplllabcom, or you can listen on your favorite streaming platform.
Drea Martin:We'll be back soon to explore the next essential trait. Until then, feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn if you have any questions or ideas.
