Leadership Attributes

These days in the country everyone is talking about political leadership and is blaming them for everything, they think, is not right. This is because the leaders are not performing with the way a successful leader need to. A person can not simply become a leader just by winning an election, or just by getting appointed at the top position, rather he or she should demonstrate few essential leadership attributes so that, an unbiased person can accept the leadership by heart. In fact the leadership capacity is the major essential factor for everyone even to understand the things more rationally. A good leader does not need power, position or money to become successful in leadership rather he or she needs just some specific attributes which will ultimately lead him/her to become a successful leader. Some most important attributes have been tried to explain below, which were highlighted by Napoleon Hill some 80 years back in his book, “Think and Grow Rich” and these attributes are still relevant and of most importance. These leadership attributes are “most have” habit for becoming a successful leader in true sense.

1.      Unwavering courage: A leader must always have strong and firm strategy and actin plans that he/she wouldn’t change his/her mind in most difficult situations also. They always stand behind the plan, which is designed considering all the factors and all possible consequences, which are well analyzed and imagined in advance. Their will power should not be influenced by other external factors to deviate from the plan. Courage, hence, is the most essential attribute for being a successful leader.

2.      Self – control: It is very much obvious that if a person is not able to control his/her thoughts or actions, how can it be expected he/she can control the followers. He/she must demonstrate live examples to the followers with adequate traits of self control. It is something like refraining from overreacting to any positive or negative comments, which may create a bad impression about the leader in followers.

3.      A keen sense of justice: A effective leader should always have a keen sense of fairness. A leader having prejudices and biases between the followers can not succeed. There should be sense of fair justice and he should not express any irrational differences with the followers. All the followers will definitely understand and accept any decision if it is taken on the basis of rationality not prejudices and biases. Without a sense of fairness and justice, no leader can command and retain the respect of his followers

4.      Definiteness of decision: A person who can not stick on his own decision can not possess a good leadership capability. It shows, he is not sure about his own decision, so followers may not get courage to follow his decision any more and next alternate leader come over and take the lead. For successful leadership the person should have capacity to consistently stay on his decision, whatever it may be. This means that they do not defer making a decision until they find a "perfect" answer or reach full consensus. They can't be afraid of risk or criticism.

5.      Definiteness of plans: the successful leader must plan his work, and work is plan. A leader who moves by guesswork without practical, definite plans, is comparable to a ship without a navigating equipment. Without firm strategy or action plan a leader can not lead the team successfully. The team members will get disoriented, if there is no definite plan of actions defined.

6.      The habit of doing more than paid for: The best leaders always outperform in the competition. They always tend to give more than what they get from. People having attitude of comparing pay with work can’t go ahead because they always think they are working more than what they are paid for and their performing capacity will be diluted by this thought. The successful leader in the history have demonstrated their habit that they always give more than what they are paid for. And if they're at the top of their field, they maintain greatness by outperforming themselves.

7.      A pleasing personality: likability of a leader has become more important by the followers as, no matter how much a leader is capable in his job, he won’t be successful unless he is exceptionally likable with pleasing personality. General people always tend to like and follow the person who is pleasing in nature and likable by others. For likability a person should invariably be pleasing in personality so that everyone following him feels comfortable to follow him as a mentor.

8.      Sympathy and understanding: any person, for better interpersonal relationship, should always be sympathetic to others. He must understand the feelings of the others. Without such attribute a person can be a leader by forceful rather than that by understanding. Forceful      leaders are like dictators and people follow them till the fear exists and in a moment fear vanishes the leadership also gets vanished. It’s not a coincidence that history is filled with kings and dictators being overthrown, since "people will not follow forced leadership indefinitely." A person can behave sarcastically and can influence the people for some time, but if the relationship is not formed on the basis of trust, sympathy and understanding, people will leave that person, who does not walk the talk.

9.      Mastery in detail: The best leaders set themselves apart by giving every part of their job their full effort, no matter how small it may be. If a lack of attention leads to regular tiny mistakes, their accumulation can become linked with reputation. A leader, if goes by surface and depends excessively on others, can not lead the team effectively for longer term. He must be master in everything he is leading.

10.  Willingness to assume full responsibility: The successful leader must be willing to assume responsibility for the mistakes and the shortcomings of his followers. The best leaders do not look for excuses to blame others or situations for failures that happened under their watch. If the leader takes full responsibility, the followers feel comfortable and safety to work under his leadership with full dedication otherwise everyone tries to find the safe-ways and the outcome may be very much less than what is expected.

11.  Cooperation: Leadership calls for power, and power calls for cooperation. The best leaders recognize that by themselves they cannot handle every challenge that comes their way, and instead build a team that they can work with, rather than make demands of. Cooperation always give strength to a team and the team leader and without it, the teammates individually suspects with each other and the leader ultimately becomes failure. Hence it is the major responsibility of a leader to create an environment of cooperation which is possible only when he himself demonstrate it.

Everywhere we can see successful leaders who developed their leadership by consent but the leaders who acquired leadership by force can not continue successfully for the longer period. In history, there are many examples of the dictators, who, acquired leadership by force, have been thrown away. This fact has been established as a universal truth and it is better for the present leaders who have acquired the leadership by force and is expecting everyone to follow them, realize this fact. Some are still trying to mislead the world and trying to influence the others to follow by using the power of position and the money, which is going to be an unsuccessful attempt.