You may have heard the phrase that someone is a born-leader. They are people with high charisma, are innately extroverted, and know how to be leaders. But being a good leader is so much more than that. There are 20 qualities of a good leader in this article. Whether you are a first time manager, or a seasoned leader who wants to hone your leadership skills, you are in the right place. The best leaders can strive people around them to achieve success, as well as themselves. Even though each leader has his own characteristics, there are several core competencies that you need to know about some effective leaders.
What it means to be a leader?
A leader is someone who is able to guide, coach and inspire others. Leaders will motivate their team through challenging times and guide everyone as their career progresses. Being a leader means not only thinking about themselves, but also about the common interests and success of the team. They must keep their teams aligned and work according to the same goal. Leaders must be able to create a collaborative culture and inspire others to become the best version of themselves.
Why good leaders are so important?
Leadership is important in every organization that helps to direct employees to improve efficiency and achieve any company goals. Effective leaders can guide, motivate, and provide clarity of purpose, so that employees can understand what mission they must carry out.
Perfect Guide About Management vs Leadership For You
Becoming a good leader doesn't have to start when you become a manager, but you can start learning it from now. Regardless of your position, understanding the role of leaders can help you achieve accomplishment and contribute more to the company.
Top 20 qualities of a good leader in a workplace
Leadership skills are crucial in every organization, because they can make significant changes for each individual to reach their full potential. Team success can be seen from how leaders motivate and inspire others to achieve common goals. Keep reading to discover the top 20 qualities of a good leader and how you start to develop that skill starting from now.
- Integrity
The highest quality of leadership is integrity. Without integrity, a leader will definitely fail. leader with integrity stands by their principles, is respected for his honesty, and encourages team members to do the same. A lack of integrity makes team members have trust issues, which will lead the team to result in failure.
- Effective communication
Any communication is considered effective if everyone can clearly convey their ideas and create mutual understanding between them. Leaders must be great communicators to be able to convey their thoughts, but must also be able to become active listeners for team members. Leaders with poor communication skills cannot direct team members to get clear goals, and make them confused about what to do and lack of alignment.
A good leader can understand how to communicate with the different characteristics of team members and can modify how they deliver the message according to the person they are talking to.
- Vision
Every leader needs to have vision. They need to have various strategies and be able to function efficiently in business. If leaders have good vision, they can set the company in the right direction. Good leaders always have new steps to keep the business growing, but there still needs to be additional ideas and opinions from team members for perfect implementation.
- Collaborative
Every leader must be able to unite their team to achieve success together. The main leader's task is to direct team members to keep on track on objectives and business goals. The leader's task is to foster trust between team members and make it easier for them to communicate and collaborate. Leadership is a collective process from leaders who direct their teams to work together and make accomplishments.
- Accountable
Leaders must be reliable when there are errors in the project. A good leader will not just blame his team when a project fails, but they can look for the main problem and solve the issue. The leader will be responsible for completing the project according to the specified time, while resolving issues between team members wisely.
- Flexibility
Each leader will work with a team with distinctive individuals, set of skills, and different walks of life. Leaders must be able to be flexible in dealing with each team member by changing their personality traits as needed. Leaders will embrace team members with different perspectives and motivate them by providing them with a place to grow.
- Emotional intelligence
This is one of the abilities to manage one's emotions. It's simple, but it can have a lot of influence on your life as a leader. Leaders must be able to understand, perceive, control their own feelings, even under the stressful conditions. Emotional intelligence allows you to provide a friendly environment, promote team cohesion, and direct team members with a collaborative trait.
- Positive attitude
A leader who is optimistic about all situations, remains hopeful no matter how difficult the situation is, and stays calm when facing problems will be an inspiration for team members. A positive mental attitude will teach team members that good things will happen eventually. Leaders who have a positive mindset will make team members optimistic about the world around them.
- Focused
Being focused is one of the good qualities of being a leader because they can easily achieve long-term benefits for the team and business. Good leaders can focus on the good performance of the team, and encourage their team members to stay on the right path in achieving goals and achieving their best capabilities.
- Adaptability
Leaders must be able to guide their teams even though the team faces crises, constantly changing environments, and new strategies. Good leaders must be able to think quickly about new strategies and make action plans to adapt to existing conditions that involve uncertainty and risk. Leaders need to invite team members to always adapt to new circumstances, so they can continue to advance in market competition.
- Risk taking
Although leaders don't have to be big risk-takers, they need to be open to new ideas and be able to take the risk while estimating potential benefits. Good leaders can identify potential risks that could affect the project, and try to control them if they do occur. Sometimes risks don't have to be avoided, but estimated which ones can be profitable for the team and which ones don't.
- Eager to learn
Effective leaders need to learn new skills about leadership or knowledge according to their field of work. Leaders need to be updated with ongoing business trends and apply the knowledge they learn. Good leaders will never be satisfied with what they learn, because they need to continue learning to be able to guide their teammates.
- Resilient
A good leader must survive and be unaffected by failure. They must remain perceptive and resilient in difficult situations. Sometimes failure cannot be avoided, but as a leader you must quickly recover from mistakes and remain strong in facing problems while looking for quick solutions. A resilient leader can focus on goals and lead their team to follow their footsteps and set an example.
- Constructive criticism
Sometimes saying yes to everything can ruin something further. Constructive criticism is valuable to understand that your opinion can also have errors or there are some points that you might ignore or ignore. By being a leader who can provide constructive criticism to team members, and is willing to accept criticism, the whole team can respect each other because they will not be afraid of conveying ideas or making mistakes.
- Decision making
The core of leadership is making decisions. If you see a mistake in a company, don't let it fester and become a leader who can take the right steps to overcome it. Sometimes leaders are faced with difficult decisions and are not approved by team members, but sometimes decisions do not have to be well-received by everyone. Good judgment ensures the company makes more profits and reduces the risk of deeper mistakes.
- Improvisation
Sometimes instinct is needed by leaders as a strong foundation for great leadership, because there are times when intuition is needed to make decisions, and some improvisation can provide more benefits for the team. If the leader already has experience and knowledge, you can react faster and improve some ideas to become better. Imagine this way, do what you think is right, because you will be criticized whether you improvise or not.
- Patient
Leaders know that failures and mistakes are inevitable. But they must remain patient with the existing conditions and offer guidance to team members when they encounter difficulties with tackle failures. Apart from solving the issues, leaders must remain patient to face any conflict, without having to show under pressure or stress in front of team members.
- Transparency
One of the characteristics of a good leader is transparency. They are more open in terms of goals, challenges and giving rewards. Team members are not only faced with a tense atmosphere when there is a problem, but also the leader needs to let them know when the office is in a good position and they have achieved accomplishments.
However, there are rules for transparency, the leader cannot tell everything to team members. Draw the boundaries between what information can be provided to all, and what needs to remain secret.
- Problem solver
Leaders have the responsibility to solve team or individual problems. Sometimes team members will talk about their difficulties or when there is conflict with coworkers. Good leaders will stay neutral and provide a middle way to solve problems. The leader will gather the team to find a solution together, but of course the leader must have his own ideas before asking for ideas from team members.
- Being creative
A good leader is someone who can think creatively. Sometimes they think outside the box to beat market competition, or solve team problems in a unique way. The creativity of a manager will be an example for team members to be able to come up with diamond ideas and not be afraid to convey them to the team. Any creative ideas need to be embraced so that other good ideas can emerge among the team.
That's all about 20 qualities of a good leader that you can learn and practice. If you need other information about leadership, team building, finance, licensing, or anything that can improve your small or medium scale business, visit the SMEBrother site and get all the information you need. SMEBrother is the solution for developing your business to the next level.
