Business Leadership Skills: Traits of Successful Leaders
What are the secrets of true leadership? Who is a successful leader? Are you? Each leader wears a variety of hats for the organization, and yet all leaders have qualities that allow them to influence and implement change and success. What are the business leadership skills that make a leader successful? I offer the following suggestions:
• High standards, strong ethics and integrity
• Charisma – not necessarily in the flashy or extroverted sense, but an ability to gain the confidence of others and build high trust relationships
• Willingness to be vulnerable – showing your weaknesses, admitting mistakes, asking for help, seeking others’ advice, ideas and support
• Passion to create something much bigger than yourself
• Ability to reinvent yourself or your business – able to respond to changes in the business landscape quickly
• Clarity about yourself – know why you are on this planet and gain strength and insight from this
• Risk-taker personality
• Confidence (without cockiness)
• Success-oriented
• Free-spirited yet centered
• Understand the importance of structure in building an organization as well as the importance of flexibility within this structure
While it’s a fact of life that the business landscape will continue to change the business leadership skills, those traits of successful leaders will remain constant. The principles are timeless. It’s imperative for your success and the growth of your business that you learn to cultivate the business leader within you.
In an idealistic world these traits may be correct for leadership. But in the real world we find that leaders seldom have high standards, strong ethics and integrity. A quick look at our political system and their leaders today and the corporate leaders of today and ask were are the standards, ethics and integrity? These people would not be where they are today if they had these traits. So it is not a requirement to possess these in order to be a leader.
Charisma is not necessary but certainly helps. I have met true leaders that were Know and Do managers that were out in front of their staff leading the way. They took care of their staff and as a result the staff would follow them to the end of the world if asked. But yet, they had no charisma.
A true leader will not show weaknesses, but will admitting mistakes, ask for help, seek others’ advice, ideas and support, and will use these to make his decisions. He will admit mistakes and take the blame even for his staff’s mistakes in order to hold them blameless. After all, he is responsible, not them.
The rest of your suggestions I will go along with because I find nothing wrong with them even though I don’t feel all are necessary to be a true leader and some are more words than substance.