10 qualities of good editors

Traits of successful editorial leadership, corporate or otherwise

Rummaging through the piles the other day, I came across an old edition of the Columbia Journalism Review and remembered why I had kept it.

It was a story called “The 10 qualities of successful editors,” and it laid out, in a way I’d never seen before or since, why being a good editor is so demanding and yet so unappreciated.

The piece focused on general circulation magazine editors, but reading it again, I was struck by how these essential characteristics could be applied to any form of journalism, including the corporate variety.

Here, then, are the 10 qualities of successful editorship and how these traits apply to corporate editors.

1. Curiosity. Good editors are fascinated by everything around them, and it is their inquisitive nature that makes them ask good questions and, in turn, be good listeners. This quality rather comes in handy in a corporate setting, where someone needs to wonder aloud about all the possibilities hiding in the far corners of the complex. (That person is you.)