Traits of Great Leadership – There is no such thing as a perfect leader. There are also many very effective types of leadership. Knowing how to be a leader is a mix of having the right traits and the right skillset. It is also a game of trial and error. There are absolutely people with charisma that can naturally lead others, but even they need to learn how to be better, how to care for their employees, and how to make smarter decisions.
It doesn’t matter if people naturally flock to you or if you have to work every day to become a leader that people respond to. There is a learning curve for everyone. At the end of the day, every great leader needs these top seven traits.
Seven Traits of Great Leadership
A great leader is one who has the vision and the means to inspire others to follow through. They work to build everyone upand are always pushing to improve themselves and those around them. That is why the seven traits of great leadership are:
1. Vision and Focus
You must have a great idea. That vision is what helps you set your sights on the horizon and is key to starting a successful business.
2. Passion and Motivation
You must be passionate, but more than that, you must be motivated. It is a lot of work to start your own business, and the fact is if you don‘t have the motivation to see it through, your goals will falter.
3. Curious
You must learn. You must be happy to learn. You must want to pursue that extra degree and then continue with learning from the moment you start your degree to the day that you complete it. In fact, you should ensure that learning plays an important role in your entire career and life. What you learn doesn’talways have to be strictly related to your business, but it does need to be consistent.
4. Empathetic
You are a leader, and sometimes those under you will go through hard times. They will be stressed, and frustrated, and suffering. If you cannot encourage them and help them through their bad times, you will lose them. Being empathetic is imperative as a leader because you are absolutely nothing without those behind you.
5. Influential
You must inspire and be able to influence others. This trait and passion go hand-in-hand, but the key difference between them is your ability to communicate. From perfecting your elevator pitch to learning how to rouse the passion and drive in your employees and investors alike, you must be able to reach the hearts of others.
6. Team Player and Listener
You are not alone. Even as a leader, you are still a member of the team, and great ideas will come from others. That is why you need to be a team player and actively listen to your employees. Try to diversify the voices around you as well so that you can draw from multiple different perspectives.
7. Accountable and Responsible
Making mistakes is not the problem. Everyone makes mistakes, but a great leader will be accountable for that mistake and actively work to improve themselves.
Thesetraits are absolutely nothing, however, without technical skills and knowledge. You can have a great idea and be able to convince others to help you, but if you don’t know the first thing about actually managing a team or running a business, all those good ideas you have had will crumble like a house of cards.
Combining Leadership Traits with the Skills to Back them Up
Leadership is a combination of having the right soft skills and the right hard skills to back them up. You need to be people smart, but you also need to understand the overall concepts of success in order to lead your company and employees. You may know how to manage a project, for example, but managing a whole business is another matter entirely. You need to understand the fundamentals of every single aspect of what makes your business tick.
You may have been a specialist beforehand. Someone who knows the fundamentals that make the business unique, but what about the actual processes that are common in every company? Marketing, finance, management, HR? It’s perfectly acceptable to not know about these topics, but it is not acceptable to do nothing about it, especially when there is an online bachelors degree program that you can complete at your own pace without taking time out from your career.
With the traits of leadership and the skills of leadership under your belt, you’ll do great things. Lead your company, become an executive-level manager, or even start your own business. The choice is yours, and your future is bright.
