7 Leadership Qualities You May Not Know You Have
What does it take to be a great leader?
Once upon a time, birth order and socioeconomic status were considered powerful determinants in who would successfully climb the ladder.
Lately, though, the focus has shifted to personal qualities.
Guiding vision, passion, and integrity are well known leadership traits. But there are lesser known leadership traits, as well-in fact, some historically have been perceived as weaknesses.
These hidden traits can be developed and nurtured to help further your career and your role as a leader, at work, in your community, or in life in general.
See if you just might have some or all of these personal qualities that lend well to leadership:
1. Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. This is incredibly important in any workplace environment and helps you to manage conflict and relationships. However, it’s become even more important as businesses compete to better understand the needs of their customers. People don’t want to be analyzed and marketed to-they want brands to understand what they want and need. Empathetic leaders function better within the company, but can also use this trait to power the business, as well.
2. Optimism
You might think of optimism as the quality of one being hopeful, but it also indicates confidence in successful outcomes. Of course, blind optimism isn’t a good thing, butoptimistic leaders can inspire and motivate teams.
3. Forgiveness
No one enjoys the boss who lords every mistake they’ve ever made over their head. There is real power in allowing employees to take calculated risks, but they have to know it’s not going to be held against them later. Doing so killscreativity and motivation-it causes people to think twice before bringing a new idea to the table, or experimenting with a new process or product. Learn how to forgive mistakes to nurture creativity and inspiration and your team will pay you back ten-fold.
4. Altruism
Altruism means you care about the welfare of others. In business, this means you want the people around you to do better, feel better, and perform better.You are not an island. You don’t need to take all of the credit for yourself.You understand that building up the people around you makes you all look better. This is an incredible leadership quality, but not one you might traditionally associate with power orstrength.
5. Eloquence
The ability to speak and write persuasively has gained importance in the age of digital communications. People expect leaders to communicate and they want to be “wowed.” An eloquent speech can close a deal. An eloquent memo to staff can quell fears, dampen dissent, or inspire people to reach new heights. Practice your writing and speaking to become a more effective,persuasive leader.
6. Discernment
Discernment is the ability to judge well, whether in relation to people, situations, or business decisions. If you are discerning, you take the time to understand a problem and walk your way around various solutions to find just the right one. You don’t jump head first into every opportunity, butthink critically and find the best option.
7. Modesty
No one likes to hear how awesome someone else is all the time-especially when it comes from that person. Let your work speak for itself; don’t fall into the trap of being the one who blows your horn the loudest. Confidence is a great trait, but must be tempered with modesty.
These qualities can be powerful tools for entrepreneurs and aspiring leaders who are willing to put the time and effort into developing them.
Here they are one last time in a visual infographic format:
Originally published in Inc.com
About The Author
Larry Kim is the Founder of WordStream. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Serial entrepreneur helping startups raise venture capital
7 年Great Post Larry Kim best part is you talk about leadership traits no leaders traits. I tend to be not too convinced about the concept of leader, here in Europe we have leaders, like professional politicians, highly rewarded CEO's despite the results, which they try to wash away through Corporate Social Responsibility. I believe leadership does not necessarily have to be exercised in a position of power say a CEO, leadership can be exercised at other levels. some of the traits you mention come out in the face of adversity. If we look at Winston Churchill I am sure a large majority would look at his actions in WW II and his leadership abilities, even his eloquence - I don't if you know as a child he stuttered and was not good at public speaking, but when the time came, adversity - which will visit us always sometime or other - he was regarded as a great communicator, his famous Blood, Sweat, tears and toils speech. But no one or not many will look at the Churchill in WWI, in the Boer War, as Admiral of the Navy, where he actually messed up quite a lot. My top 3 Empathy, if you can't put yourself in another mans shoes you may be a leader but not exercise leadership, second Discernment and third forgiveness - forgiveness stays in you and that's not good it will come out in some shape or form.
A great post, and reading it sparked a query around your view of leadership qualities in the face of their being so many other different formulations of qualities and it seems many are not known to be possessed be leaders. Looking through a few LinkedIn posts about leadership, many different qualities, characteristics, virtues, attributes, traits, and so on, can be identified, as indicated in the list below. The profusion of lists of qualities can be supported by a simple online search around leadership qualities, characteristics, virtues, attributes, traits etc. that makes it obvious the countless similar lists to yours available online (e.g. https://bit.ly/1Xeirzc). This is intended as an observation rather than a criticism. Faced with the many compositions of qualities I'm finding it difficult to make sense of, and what to do with, your list. With the likelihood of your knowing there are many other lists available while writing the post, and that readers will likely appreciate the same variety, I’d be interested in what advice would you give to an aspiring leader with regards interpreting and making use of your list of qualities? As I’m wrestling with leadership I hope the above question makes sense. ------------------ Be Brave | Don't take failures personally | Positive Attitude | Proper Vision | Proper Mission | Proper execution | Self-awareness | Social awareness | Self-confidence | Capacity for learning | Able to influence | Make decisions. decisive | Manage change | Have integrity | Be open | Big picture thinking | Humility | Integrity | Authenticity | Transparency | Empathy | Execute Strategy | Ethical | Asking right questions | Good listener | Recognise others efforts | Seek input from others | Coming from alternative directions | Visibility | An 'art' | Accessibility | Clear Goals | Remover of barriers | Provider of resources | Act with honour | Empathy | Rigor | Energy | Collaboration | Fairness | Inspirational | Walk the talk | Emotional Intelligence | Like Simplicity | Create atmosphere | Dauntlessness | Other-centeredness | Critical Thinking | Vigorous Vision | feel the passion for the thing is doing | know the ways to get it, like master the actions | hear others, specially the team | do it first | Create great teams | accept other’s opinions to improve | motivate other’s, encourage them and follow up the actions | Success will be a plus | give the credit to the team or to each one, or both | evaluate and take correction actions | Reduce Ambiguity and uncertainty | Be nice | Be punctual | Show compassion | Lead by example | Open to criticism | Not stuck in corporate bureaucracy | Sense of Urgency | Part of the solution, not part of the problem | Not comfortable with the status quo | Empathetic engagement | Engaged | Mentor | Recognise and (more importantly) value differences | Be willing to give up power, knowledge, information, credit | Make building relationships with all your stakeholders a priority | Model collaborative behaviour at the top | Encouragement | Genuine interest in people | Passion | being humble | Good posture | Physically fit | Sound Right | Understand values | Discipline | Wisdom | Vision | Initiative | Honesty | Willingness | Humour | Generosity | Coaching | Day Dreaming | Balance proactive and reactive forces | Display excellent strategic vision | Have a strong customer focus | Create a climate of reciprocal trust | Display fearless loyalty to doing what’s right for the organization and customers | Put their faith in a culture that magnifies upward communication | Are persuasive | Excel at setting stretch goals | Emphasize speed | Are candid in their communication | Inspire and motivate through action | Agile | Facilitation | Servant - servant leadership | Service | Responsibility | Joint venture, a journey, a challenge | Instil Hope…
Business Owner at R. G. International, Driving Global Trade Success
7 年You have described beautifully the quality of active & action oriented leadership.
Creative Agile Marketer, Obsessed With Metrics
7 年Great post! True leaders are hard to find, but when you find those unicorns, you know it.
Futurist ? Award-Winning CEO ? Trusted C-Suite Advisor / Innovation Coach ? CEO of Ascently Institute Nonprofit : Respect and Protect Human Agency, Creativity & Sovereignty ? Author ? Speaker ? Love Tech, ?? Humans More!
7 年???? Another insightful post Larry Kim ! Your list highlights how being ethical and invested is an advantage in leadership, and consistent with the values that make us all better people.