Great Leaders Traits

Effective leadership is a complex combination of character traits (or habits) and competencies (or skills and practices) that build a relationship of trust and influence. Only when followers see a never-broken pattern of honesty in the leader, will they be able to fully trust the leader. With the establishment of complete trust, followers can then invest their energy, livelihood, and commitment into the leader and the vision and goals that they are mutually pursuing.

“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”

-Bob Marley

Honesty

Whenever you lead a group of individuals whether they are employees, colleagues, or any other group of people they will look to you for guidance.

Therefore, you must display qualities that will inspire them and give them a behavior to emulate.

Honesty is one trait great leaders typically display. Honesty encourages the team members to respond in kind.

Consequently, as the team leader if you are honest there is a far greater chance your team members will be honest in their actions and behavior.

Honesty may be seen as transparency and openness- your willingness to communicate what you’re thinking or feeling, even when it is uncomfortable or unpopular.

Honesty may be seen as a willingness to listen and discuss issues before the data is completely thought through when available alternatives are not fully crystallized, and when decisions are not yet final.

It may also be seen as keeping your word, following through on promises, and delivering on time.

Visionary

Great leaders have a vision. Visionary leadership is a leadership style where an individual is able to see and communicate a vision of the future to others who will turn it into reality.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Leading with the visionary leadership style means seeing what goals or future state you want to work toward. These leaders need to have a vision.

These types of leaders think about what’s possible or what could be improved in their environment and then see how it can be accomplished.

They like to challenge themselves and others to think outside the box and push the boundaries of the status quo.

While helping others see the vision is a key part of visionary leadership, it takes actually doing the work in order to make that vision happen and, of course, be successful.

A visionary leader will help the team get through each step on the road to make the goal come to life.

When challenges arise, they’ll find solutions to work around or pivot. Part of this step is keeping the team motivated and giving them the freedom to innovate and find unique ways to make the vision reality.

A visionary leaders must not only possess the hard technical business skills necessary for a company to succeed, but they must also convince others to follow them.

Emotional awareness of your own and others’ emotions is essential for connecting with others and evoking a strong emotional response that will make them want to follow you.

Emotional intelligence is also, along with communication skills, one of the components of personal charisma, another visionary leadership characteristic.

Adaptability Quotients

We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. To survive in this challenging environment, leaders must develop their Adaptability Quotient (AQ).

A leader demonstrating flexibility to self and others portrays the movement as less rigid, involving bending, stretching, expanding, or accommodating. This requires a willingness to change on behalf of the leader.

Flexibility allows others to contribute new thoughts, ideas, and approaches.

A core component of adaptability is the capacity to remain open and curious. Whilst a leader may be able to draw on experience to guide others, they may find themselves in times of stress or entirely new situations applying inadequate thinking or being unable to accommodate new potential.

Letting go of the known, especially at a more conscious level, means a leader must also learn to unlearn and relearn to succeed.

Regardless, there is merit in the concept that refocusing on a higher-level goal helps to increase one’s ability to tolerate the discomfort of change or setback and to persist despite the experience of not succeeding. For this reason, resilience remains an essential aspect of adaptability.

we see resilience as an ongoing process of constantly linking in with our highest-level purpose and goals, reframing setbacks as an essential step toward achieving what matters most in our lives and our work. This selective cognitive reframing and repositioning is an active process called refocused resilience. Leaders help build refocussed resilience in a workforce through a conscious process of clearly linking with the mission and staying true to purpose.

At a higher level of adaptability quotient, one leader can think to step down from power if he/she doesn’t see any more possibilities to make a difference in a country or in an organization And could make a chance to others for greater change.