Various leadership qualities have been observed throughout history; some were demonstrated by bad leaders, while good leaders exhibited others. In either case, those in charge’s leadership characteristics correlated with their ability to accomplish their goals. These traits determined how much – or how little – their followers looked up to them, as clearly shown. Fortunately, you can put history into perspective and learn from others’ leadership styles to develop admirable leadership strengths.
There are specific qualities of good leaders that stand out to have contributed to their magnitude. The noble news is each of these characteristics and traits can be learned through practice and repetition.
What Makes Good Leaders Great is the balance between business foresight, performance, and character that they find. They have a vision, bravery, integrity, humility, and focus, and the ability to plan strategically and catalyze cooperation amongst their team. The noteworthy identified qualities of great leaders and executives are listed here:
1. Vision
“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch
Great leaders have a vision; they can grasp the future. They have a clear, exciting idea of where they are going and what they are trying to accomplish and are excellent at strategic planning. This quality differentiates them from managers. Having a clear vision turns the individual into a particular type of ideal person. This quality of vision changes a “transactional manager” into a “transformational leader.” While a manager gets the job done, great leaders tap into the emotions of their employees. Leaders who transform their followers an admired than transactional leaders who would only focus on having things done and not considering those accomplishing tasks.
2. Courage
“Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.” – Winston Churchill
One of the more essential qualities of a good leader is courage. Having the quality of courage means that you are willing to take risks to achieve your goals with no assurance of success. Because there is no certainty in life or business, every commitment you make and every action you take entails a risk of some kind. The leadership quality ‘courage’ is the most identifiable outward trait.
3. Integrity
“With integrity, you have nothing to fear since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing so that you will have no guilt.” – Zig Ziglar
In every strategic planning session that has been conducted for large or small corporations, the first value that all the gathered executives agree upon for their companies is integrity. They all agree on the importance of complete honesty in everything they do, both internally and externally. The core of integrity is truthfulness. Integrity requires that you always tell the truth, to all people, in every situation. Honesty is the foundational quality of the trust that is necessary for the success of any business.
4. Humility
“The more you can contain your ego, the more realistic you are about your problems. You learn how to listen and admit that you don’t know all the answers. You exhibit the attitude that you can learn from anyone at any time. Your pride doesn’t get in the way of gathering the information you need to achieve the best results. It doesn’t keep you from sharing the credit that needs to be shared. Humility allows you to acknowledge your mistakes.” – Larry Bossidy
Great leaders are those who are strong and decisive but also humble. Humility is not a sign of weakness or unsure of yourself. It is a manifestation of self-confidence and self-awareness to recognize the value of others without feeling threatened. This is one of the rarer attributes – or traits – of good leaders because it requires containment of one’s ego. It means that you are willing to admit whenever you are wrong and accept that you may not have all the answers to all questions. And it also means that you give credit where credit is due – – which many people struggle to do.
5. Strategic Planning
“Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: it’s the starting point.” – Henry Mintzberg
Great leaders are outstanding at strategic planning. It’s another one of the more critical leadership strengths. They have the ability to look ahead to anticipate with some accuracy where the industry and the markets are going. Leaders can anticipate trends well in advance of their competitors. They continually ask, “Based on what is happening today, where is the market going? Where is it likely to be in three months, six months, one year, and two years?” They do this through thoughtful strategic planning. The other institutions are the same as the market; for example, if you are leading a nation, you must understand how it will look like after 5 to 10 years and beyond.
Because of increasing competitiveness, only the leaders and institutions that can accurately anticipate future markets can survive. Only leaders with foresight can gain the “first mover advantage.”
6. Focus
“Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures and the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to fulfilling their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them. – Jack Canfield
Leaders always focus on the needs of the company/institution and the situation. Leaders focus on results, on what must be achieved by themselves, others, and the organization. Great leaders focus on strengths in themselves and others. They focus on the organization’s strengths and the things that the company does best to satisfy demanding customers in a competitive marketplace. Your ability as a leader to call the shots and make sure that everyone is focused and concentrated on the most valuable use of their time is essential to the enterprise’s excellent performance.
7. Cooperation
“If your imagination leads you to understand how quickly people grant your requests when those requests appeal to their self-interest, you can have practically anything you go after.” – Napoleon Hill
One’s ability to get everyone working and pulling together is essential to one’s success. Leadership is the ability to get people to work for you because they want to. Twenty percent of your people contribute 80 percent of your results. Your ability to select these people and then work well with them daily is essential to the organization’s smooth functioning. Gain others’ cooperation by committing to getting along well with each key person every day. You always have a choice when it comes to a task: You can do it yourself, or you can get someone else to do it for you.