Leadership qualities you have hidden inside, but never realized

There is no coaching for leadership. You don’t get any special training to become a leader. History is a proof that the greatest leaders in time were the ones who were able to make the best of their abilities; the abilities, which we all have, but somehow don’t realize.

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So in this post I am going to discuss some of those inherent qualities. The abilities, capabilities or whatever you might call them, that we all have but don’t know -

Positive attitude

We all have faced setbacks in our life, but there’s is always a hope that things will fit into their place. This hope keeps us going forward in life. Believe it or not, but an optimistic attitude that even after downfalls you can rise up and take on even bigger challenges is what makes great leaders.

Talk about any of the leaders in the past, or in current times as well, they have seen their fair share of failures. Yet, they never gave up! Steve Jobs was also removed from Apple once, but he did not give up. He came back even stronger, and the rest as they say is history.

Decision making

Decision making comes naturally to us humans. You might not even realize, but in our day-to-day activities we have to make so many decisions. Starting from picking up subjects in college to deciding which fraternity to join, which game to participate and more. All those are quite important decisions in our life. Right?

Discerning between right and wrong decision is a matter of how well a person understands the problem. If we talk about leaders, decision making is one of the most important facets of their job. And, the reason that they are able to make the right choices, more often than not, is because they are ready to invest their time understanding the situation before making the decision.

Something we all can give a try - every time you have to make a decision, jot down the list of pros and cons that you can think of after taking it. And, you will have an answer whether you should stick to the decision or not.

Altruistic behavior

We as humans are social beings. We live in societies, which includes family members and our friends. And, we love to help them in their tough times. So, in a way altruistic behavior comes naturally to us.

This lays the foundation of healthy team building. A leader is always the one who is there to help others. If you have ever captained a sports team or any other team for that matter, then you must know that a leader does not need to take the credit for the success of the team. And, that’s how successful leaders work. They know that success is a result of team efforts and not an individual’s performance.

Forgiveness

This might sound a little philosophical at first. But, trust me great leaders are always good at forgiving people. But, this is not something unique to them. We all have this trait inculcated in our DNA since birth, but as we grow up we change. The feelings of anger and disappointment take over the basic human behavior of forgiveness.

But, great leaders are the ones who are able to control their feelings of anger, disappointment and frustration. That’s the reason they are able to forgive people easily. If you also want to become good at forgiving people, then practicing mindfulness can help.

Those were just a few of the habits that we all possess, but somehow are unable to bring them into practice at work. The only thing that differentiate between leaders and followers is the fact that leaders are the ones who take control of their inherent capabilities/traits. They know how to make the most of them.

Yes you had these traits all these years. Yet, not all of you were able to lead teams because you could not identify with these traits. I hope after reading this post, you will be able to come out of the shell. And, move on the journey to lead your team in any given situation.

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Vartika Kashyap is a seasoned marketing professional who is an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. Connect with Vartika on LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter.

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