10 Qualities of a Good Leader

Being a leader isn’t a cakewalk, but it is certainly rewarding when you do it right. Whether you’re spearheading a project in management, leading a social group, or raising brand awareness, how you represent yourself to your peers and the public will make a world of difference. Below, is a list of the top 10 qualities that a leader must possess.

10 Outstanding Qualities of Good Leaders

Here are some of the best qualities of a good leader in business, management, or literally, any line or field of work

1. Passion

With no passion for your work, your day-to-day routine will be mundane. You’ll be soaring through the tasks with a lack of enthusiasm, and your actions will clearly show. Nobody likes to follow a leader who lacks passion and drive. Getting down to it is important.

2. Commitment

Do you follow through every action you mention verbally? If yes, then it is the ideal quality of a leader. If not, then prepare to be disappointed. Staying committed to your goals and interests showcases a positive drive. It sends people a message that you’re serious about what you do and that you mean every word you say. The result – more people will follow you and show up with work instead of complaints and excuses.

3. Grit

Tough situations are around every corner. When you release something new into the world as an entrepreneur, you need all the support you can get. But your internal support or that little voice telling you to keep going is essential. Grit is a quality that lets you push through the challenges despite defying odds, and people look up to someone like this. Plus, if you can’t overcome the obstacles in front of by you, how will you confront more significant and harder challenges?

4. Positive Thinking

A leader inspires his people through actions. Inspiration stems from positivity and positivity leads to creative and out-of-the-box thinking. People are more attracted to positive personalities and stay away from toxic influences. Being a pleasant person to work with is one of the most prominent pillars of becoming and a reliable and fantastic leader. Don’t forget that!

5. Communication

Telling your team what you want, how you want, and when you want is not communicating. It’s called being bossy. If you want to inculcate the qualities of a good leader in management, you have to learn how to connect with your team. You should be able to put yourself in their shoes and see where they’re coming from. Communication is also a critical skill if you are seriously considering leveraging the power of people. Words are things which can inspire or deter people, and your vision’s growth depends on the way you use them.

6. Accountability

Accountability is essential if you want to live in the present, achieve realistic goals, and not get swayed by false delusions of grandeur and hope. When you give your team a project to work on, follow up now and then to see how they’re doing. Likewise, tell your team to provide you with a review when you’re messing up or going off-track. The key here to being accountable is honest, non-judgemental and two-way communication. It’s okay to make mistakes, but if you aren’t learning and applying solutions to your future problems, then you’re not making progress. Accountability is also an effective way of goal-setting and lets you stay grounded at the moment.

7. Empathy

Empathy ranks at the top as the most significant leadership qualities for managers. It’s the ability to empathise with others and see the difficulties they are facing. To understanding their feelings and looking at the problem from their perspective. An empathetic leader is someone who not only pulls himself up but others too. They share successes, celebrate the small wins and face failures together. No blame games here but mutual partnerships instead. Not only will empathy inspire your team members, but you’ll find yourself getting lots of followers in the process.

How to be empathetic? Start by talking to your team members about their family members, or any pictures you see on their desks. How did their day go or what’s bothering them at home? Are there any challenges they face at work and if not, what motivates them to show up every day? The key takeaway here is to get to know them on a personal level and see how you can help them do their work better by analysing their problems and perspectives.

8. Creativity

Victor Pinchuk once said: “Art, freedom, and creativity will change society faster than politics.” If you’re serious about changing the world and making an impact on people’s lives, start by being creative. Creativity can be learned and harnessed, if you don’t know what it feels like, to be honest. Creativity is also the ability to work in controlled environments, thinking out of the box, and solving challenges which need you to stick to or cross your limits, both personal and professional. Some examples of how to foster creativity include playing a game with your team or qualifying your workspaces. Basically, you want to feel open, playful, and relaxed – like a kid who’s seeing the world with fresh eyes and brainstorm/achieve goals with that mindset.

9. Decision Making

Facing challenges and overcoming them also means making tough decisions or more efficient decisions now and then. The choices a good manager makes could be the little things like the culture at the workplace, how team members interact with each other, drafting data safety and security policies, or taking a call on whether to move on or scrap the project based on results acquired. Sometimes decisions could be spontaneous like addressing emergency bottlenecks in logistics and handling angry customers with the help of the customer support team. Or even something bigger, like reacting or speaking for your brand against the negative opinions portrayed by the media. There are also short-term and long-term decisions too, but a good leader is aware of what it takes to achieve those milestones and get there.

10. Thinking About the Big Picture

A good leader has the above qualities listed for sure, but a great leader has what we call “big picture thinking” skills. This means he’s able to look at problems as puzzles and dissect them section by section, tackling the issues one at a time. It also means, connecting the dots to form the whole picture. An excellent way to think about this concept is to let go of the tiny details to look at the broader perspective. Ways you can inculcate big picture thinking are practising mindfulness, doodling, and collaborating on tasks with various departments. Break your goal down into different elements and see how the components work together, primarily.

If you hope to be a good leader, then the best way to start is by being human and developing yourself, because that’s the easiest way to convert your words to actions and we mean it.

Also Read:

Ways to Motivate Yourself at Work
Leadership Lessons You Can Learn from Working Mothers
Ways to Increase Your Productivity at Work