Leadership qualities
Leadership qualities
Characteristics and virtues
Many people have tried to summarise what makes one person a good leader and another less so.
These are a few of the characteristics and virtues that have been put forward.
Long term and not short term
Their thinking is much more strategic and involves where the organisation will hope to be at some point in the future.
This ‘strategic’ thinking is wrapped up in promoting a ‘vision’.
Wide sphere of influence
Many ‘management’ leaders may be rather parochial in their approach. The do not look beyond their team for help.
If this is the case then their influence is drastically reduced. The true leader will seek to know about the wider activities of the organisation and how their department fits into the overall scheme. In doing this they will seek to have friends, and hence, influence over a wider area.
This will give them a much greater opportunity to succeed at a higher level.
Motivation
Leaders will seek to motivate their teams [see The Complete Motivation package] by displaying their own values and leading by example, thus building trust.
This will involve the casting of a vision and its communication.
It is not unusual in nature to see a flock of birds, on a long journey, with one leader, as an example, at the head of a broad arrow shape.
The leader has plenty of followers until it tires and swaps over.
Political skills
Development of political skills is essential and ignorance in this area can lead to a lack of career advancement.
Proactivity
A good leader creates the agenda. He or she does not let things stagnate but consistently seeks improvement.
The leader is proactive and not reactive.
Negative events
Leadership is not an easy path and requires some strong characteristics in the face of many negative events.
You will need to maintain clear and focused thoughts when problems arise.
In defeat or other failures you may need to demonstrate courage.
A leader must be able to show enthusiasm and inspiration when others are beginning to weaken.
This ability is not easy to define and some people may have it whilst others may not.
Typical leadership methods
When people consider leadership they will often think of the armed forces and going into battle.
Many people’s idea of good leadership is to study great military leaders or political leaders and to try to emulate them.
The problem with this technique is that everyone will list their own list of attributes for a leader based upon these examples.
It will be pretty near impossible to be competent at all of them.
If you can understand the basic principles you can then tailor it to your own circumstances.