I look for all of these things as well, and they are critical. But none of them have any relevance in a technical domain if the person who has them isn't capabl

I look for all of these things as well, and they are critical. But none of them have any relevance in a technical domain if the person who has them isn't capable of pulling more weight than anyone else. Management is only approximately a learned and transferable skill. At the end of the day, lack of capacity in the target domain will make any managerial knowhow useless. Also to be clear, I'm not talking about software development in the mythical man month sense, but systems thinking and a facility with abstractions and math combined with the ability to make such ideas real. Such people have the power to lift everyone up to their level, guide the group along an easy path, and fill in the gaps in ability present in their team. There is a reason that people learn martial arts from people who have developed skill at them, not those who are good at managing workouts. The latter will only teach you how to manage your workouts. If you want to learn an art, learn from a master. In technical domains the masters are the best leaders, and you learn from them in every sense.