8 Signs To Identify A Great Leader (And Why It Matters)

Identifying and developing great leaders is vital for any respectable organization. It matters a lot for many reasons, and I want to mention at least two of them.

First, too often people in positions of formal power within an organization aren’t good leaders. They might be good managers, but that doesn’t make them leaders (let alone good ones!).

Understanding the characteristics of a great leader helps identify who is one and who is not.

Appointing bad leaders to lead teams can be one of the most damaging and disastrous decisions for any organization’s potential and culture. Bad leaders can truly destroy people’s inspiration and capacity to unleash their best performance.

The second reason is that identifying a great leader means getting to know those who truly and genuinely inspire, influence and care about others, but don't necessarily have any formal authority. And that ultimately helps to decide who should be assigned to lead teams and empowered with a higher level of responsibility.  

Any respectable organization that is seriously interested in unleashing its own potential and that of their people needs great leaders.

Great leaders are willing, capable and eager to positively influence, empower and inspire others. They are role models of the behaviors that the organization wants to embrace in order to remain relevant, competitive and successful.

These are eight signs on how to identify great leaders.

1. They believe

I always say that the best leaders in the world are capable of seeing what’s invisible to others. They can spot opportunities hidden behind threats, solutions masked as problems or innovations being born from risks. Great leaders believe in the capacity of the organization, its purpose and the people that can make it happen. Great leaders are confident. In short, they are optimistic. They believe.

Look for people capable of seeing the invisible, working to make the impossible possible, embracing the difficulties and seizing opportunities. There might be a great leader in there.

2. They remain calm in chaos

The pace of innovation is faster and competition is fiercer than in any other time in history. Simply put, these are difficult times for any organization and its leaders. These are times full of chaos and uncertainty. Most organizations were not designed to deal with chaos, but to thrive in standard-based controllable business environments. And their leadership was selected to succeed in such an unchanging status-quo. But things are very different now. Things change extremely fast today. And the type of leadership that used to be valuable before is obsolete now.

Great leaders in the technological revolution remain calm in chaos. And they find the ways to continue to add value and thrive in a volatile environment.

Look for those who thrive in chaos.

3. They care about others

Great leaders genuinely care about others. And this is not just caring about their work performance, but their personal well-being. Great leaders are focused on their people’s needs and motivators. They do whatever is necessary to ensure that employees feel satisfied, well-rewarded, acknowledged, connected and happy at work. More importantly, they want their employees to find meaning in what they do. And this is not a hippy approach. Most research shows that productivity skyrockets when employees are happy and engaged. Therefore, genuinely caring about others has the effect of increasing the well-being of the workforce and their happiness, while at the same time ensuring a higher return on performance and productivity.

Are you searching for the real leaders in you organization? Keep an eye out for those who genuinely care about others. They will definitely have a stronger influence than those who don’t care.

4. They connect people with a purpose

Great leaders know that it’s impossible to achieve the best organizational performance when the workforce is disengaged, frustrated and demotivated. And they also understand that financial rewards and “perks” are far from being the only one (and most important) employee motivator. Times have changed and the newer and younger generations are in a quest to find more meaning and purpose in the work they do. Not that they want to be underpaid, but they are extremely focused on connecting to the larger purpose of their day to day work. Great leaders are excellent in connecting people’s desire to make significant contributions with the organization’s purpose. They make people feel part of something that is more important and larger than any single individual. Great leaders make people feel that their work, be it that of an assistant or the lead engineer, is critical for the success of the organization.

Look for those capable of keeping the big picture in mind, communicating it and meaningfully connecting people’s contribution to that larger purpose.

5. They challenge and support their people

Great leaders truly want to unleash their people’s potential. In order to achieve that, great leaders challenge and support their people.

Challenging employees means assigning them to increasingly more complex projects. In doing so, great leaders are ensuring that employees remain actively learning and engaged with the work at hand and don’t get bored, annoyed or disengaged (what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls Flow). But great leaders don’t leave their people alone when they face greater challenges and adversities than they are currently prepared to tackle. That would result in increased anxiety, stress and frustration. Instead, these leaders support their people by coaching them and offering constant valuable feedback. The best leaders in the world know to balance the practice of support and challenge. And the greatest leaders are the best coaches and mentors.

Can you spot the informal coaches and mentors in your organization? Can you see how they influence others without formal power? You got a potential leader there.

6. They are humans

Perhaps the most sublime characteristic of a great leader is that they are humans, like everyone else. Not super humans, not infallible, not flawless, but humans with all that humanity usually entails. They make mistakes, they sometimes yell, they get mad and frustrated, and sometimes they want to throw the towel. Ultimately, they too suffer the emotional burden that befalls when things don’t go as expected.

But their inspiring personality is strong enough to help them move on. Great leaders know how to apologize, fix the problems, bring people together and create cohesiveness around a powerful organizational purpose and to motivate others even when things seem to be harder than ever. They are genuinely good humans!

Look for those who care. Over my professional careers I’ve seen how good people aren’t given opportunities to formally lead teams, whereas bad leaders (and sometimes jerks) are promoted. Don’t damage your organization by doing that! Spot the great leaders. Promote them. Give them the tools to continue to be a beacon of excellence.

7. They are committed to their integrity

Great leaders lead with integrity. Their reputation is their most important asset and tool to influence others. Bad leaders have to force things to happen and they depend on their positions of formal authority to exert influence upon others. Without such an authority they wouldn't be able to get anything done or make anything happen. But great leaders are committed to their integrity.

Integrity is the most valuable asset on which great leaders cash their influence and their capacity to promote positive change, while building a strong organizational culture. Without integrity they wouldn't have influence. For them, integrity comes before anything else.

Look for those who keep their word and remain trustworthy in good and bad times. Keep an eye out for those who don't sell their integrity out for a temporary reward.

8. They lead

As I said at the beginning, very often those who occupy positions of formal power in an organization aren’t good leaders. I wonder how they got there (politics, connections, interests, lies?). However, what’s true is that sometimes they are incapable of inspiring others (they could, but probably they don’t even mind). And sometimes they don’t even care about their people. Perhaps they are great performers and deliver their work with high quality. That might make them good performers, and sometimes even good managers, but not good leaders.

Great leaders lead. They lead with the heart. They lead with a purpose. They care about their people. They are genuinely interested in maximizing their people’s well-being, not just because it feels good and rewarding, but because it’s an avenue to achieve higher performance as an organization.

Great leaders are not afraid to lead. They are not invincible, they are not infallible and they are not perfect. But they are courageous to assume the total responsibility that leading and influencing others entails.

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About the author, Enrique Rubio:

I am passionate about Human Resources, People Operations, Technology and Innovation. I'm an Electronic Engineer, Fulbright Scholar and Executive Master in Public Administration with a focus on HR.

Over the past 15 years I've worked in the HR and tech world. I am very interested in the digitization of the workplace and Human Resources. 

I currently work as an HR Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank. I'm also the founder of Hacking HR and building Cotopaxi, an artificial intelligence based recruitment platform for emerging markets.

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