THE CHARACTERISTICS AND ATTRIBUTES OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERS

We have conducted various leadership workshops for many companies all over Pakistan. The normal starting point for such workshops is to ask the participants what their view towards skills and attributes of a successful leader are – at the same time, we ask them who they consider to have been outstanding leaders both in Pakistan and from around the globe.

During initial discussions with workshop groups, the focus is on leaders in general, just the basics, and gradually we get into the specifics about business leaders. It is crucial for us to understand what these groups know about leadership skills and attributes so that we can then eventually move on to discussing the attributes of successful business leaders in Pakistan.

The results of such interactions with these participants are generally very similar. They often perceive good leaders to include the following qualities:

·????????Have a vision

·????????Integrity

·????????Character

·????????Focus

·????????Excellent communication skills

·????????High degree of intelligence

·????????Able to make effective decisions

·????????Strategic thinking

·????????Foresight

·????????Ability to build rapport with people

·????????Determination

·????????High level of motivation

·????????Able to inspire people towards a common goal

As you would notice, the above list is a combination of the hard skills as well as soft skills. It was research conducted by Daniel Goleman that highlighted and confirmed the fact, that to be successful as a leader, one needs to have a high degree of what he came to describe as Emotional Intelligence. Until this research was published it was generally believed that to be successful as a leader the most important ingredient was IQ or intelligence of the individual along with his technical know-how.

It is hardly surprising that the role of a leader has more to do with inspiring, motivating and directing people and as a result there must be a high degree of emotional intelligence present in order to discharge the role effectively. Neither intelligence nor technical ability will compensate for a lack of commitment from the followers. Therefore, even the best strategies would not work if the leader is not able to galvanize the support of his entire team towards a common theme or a set of goals. It is for this reason that many highly intelligent leaders often fail in their attempts to build a successful organization, despite having the right strategy and other ingredients within their companies.