1. Style: The ability to engender confidence just from the sound of your voice. Particularly your cadence, word choice, and framing.

2. Managing up and sideways: The ability to tell your CEO and your peers in other functions what they need to hear - Often "no" and "later" - in a way that makes them feel good about the answer.

3. Good instincts: The ability to fast-forward to the right answer more quickly and more often than your direct reports. This doesn't mean you're never wrong or that you never admit that you're wrong (quite the opposite!). It means that - thanks to your experience and intuition - you tend to draw good conclusions and make good decisions that your team can rely on and benefit from.