5 Impressive Leadership Traits to Model

How do you get someone to follow you? Successful leaders have found that it isn't position power that matters most in the employee and supervisory relationship. Personal power is the real key. Leaders take people to where they want to go. Great leaders take people to where they ought to be. That's the essence of these leaders' presence and the characteristics they possess.

Leadership through position power is a selfish, egotistical approach and involves these strategies:

• Dictatorial approach with little feedback allowed
• Employees are subordinate
• "Do as I say"
• Fear strategies
• The leader has the best answers
• Seeking personal victory only

Leadership through personal power is an altruistic approach and includes these strategies:

• Engagement approach
• Employees are partners
• Lead by example
• Influencing strategies
• The team has the answers, too
• Caring for others, helping them win

This is an exciting time to be a leader. Better leaders are needed everywhere. Trust is lacking, and employees are frustrated.  The bottom line, I have learned, is that true leadership effectiveness has more to do with who you are and less to do with your job title.

What are these impressive characteristics of leadership?

Research by management gurus Kouzes and Posner found four crucial leadership characteristics from an exhaustive list of over 225 different values, traits and characteristics. Their methodology included a questionnaire and case studies. The following open-ended question summarized the views of over 20,000 managers from four continents: What values (personal traits or characteristics) do you look for and admire in your superiors?

What they found is that people want to follow leaders who are honest, forward-looking, inspiring  and competent. Below is my definition of each of these characteristics.  I also added the fifth area that often determines how consistently successful a leader becomes.

Leading Honestly

The most admired leaders tell the truth and do what they say they will do. Considering all of the celebrity type leaders across industries with ethical problems that have "bit the dust", this is not surprising. Honesty, integrity, and ethics are in great demand today. Doing business with integrity is becoming even more crucial than  being the best because it's rare. After all, if you are dishonest, it affects the trust you have in your relationships with employees and customers, and it erodes the foundation of your inner conscience.

In his book, Principled Centered Leadership, Steven Covey defines integrity as: "Honestly matching words and feelings with thoughts and actions, with no desire other than for the good of others, without malice or desire to deceive, take advantage, manipulate, or control, constantly reviewing your intent as you strive for congruence." See my post 21 Traits to Lead by Example: Rate Yourself, for more insights and a self-assessment.

Being Inspiring

Great leaders invest their genuine enthusiasm for what they do because it is their passion and it becomes contagious. Leaders that get genuinely excited about what they do find it almost impossible not to get others to be charged up as well. Communication is the key. This means social media, one on one, presentations and team meetings.

Far too many leaders fancy themselves as great communicators. Yet, employees are disenfranchised in epic proportions. Leaders who truly excel in this area have a superb advantage over others.

Staying Competent

Success as a leader is never assured. Competence is a moving target. However, the best leaders are "students of the game".  They keep learning from the best and emulate them, and work hard to increase their effectiveness over time. Research by Dr. Travis Bradbury demonstrates that many executive leaders lack emotional intelligence skills.

Emotional Intelligence skills involves the "people skills" that separates the best leaders from the rest. This is a key area for building collaboration and teams. No matter what level of leadership you are, attend plenty of training to invigorate this and even consider getting a coach to help.

Looking Forward

Better leaders create vision for the future and positively communicate it. Yes, they also focus on the short-term, to do well today, but have a plan for a better tomorrow. Leaders need to hold both of these simultaneously in their hands. In our research at WCW Partners, we found that 80% of performance problems are the result of a lack of clear expectations and goals.

A leader at any level first needs a picture of where he or she wants the team to be.  This is next translated clearly into team goals and plans, and individual expectations. Done well and consistently, this process helps transform employees into self-directed high performers.

Setting High Standards

My high school baseball coach taught me this. Instantly I knew he was different as he talked about giving an authentic effort and reaching for higher goals. We always had outstanding teams with him regardless of the talent. Over the years I have noticed that the best leaders do this as well. They don't talk 'pie in the sky' but invest in who you are, what's possible and the competitive spirit inherent in everyone.

One of my clients has a strategic objective to compete passionately. The organization is detailed and has ambitious plans. They are up against bigger rivals but are winning by constantly improving what they do well. I have found that most people think they are performing better than they are and most can perform significantly better than they do.  

In conclusion, Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, said, “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”

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 Rick has partnered with clients to achieve train or coach nearly 300,000 leaders.  Contact him at: [email protected] or call 1-888-313-0514.

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