Top 13 Traits of a Great Leader: Essential Qualities for Success.

Great leadership is a process that thrives on embracing challenges, seeking feedback, building connections, and gaining understanding.

It requires a combination of key traits. Integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, empathy, and resilience are the qualities that define a successful leader.

A leader must embody each of these characteristics to lead a team effectively. Leadership involves more than just guiding others, it also encompasses personal development and creating an authentic and impactful leadership style.

True leaders share their vision, show gratitude, and collaborate effectively, while also being adaptable and influential. Through their actions and words, they cultivate environments that foster productivity, creativity, trust, and admiration. The breakdown of the thirteen essential traits of a good leader is;

• Understanding yourself, your emotions, concerns, habits, and personality: This introspective quality, along with humility, is crucial for effective leadership. Developing a deeper understanding of oneself can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and lead more effectively. It's important to consider how others perceive you and how you carry yourself both at home and work. Taking the time to explore the four facets of self-awareness can be beneficial in enhancing your overall self-awareness.

• Being curious and a constant interest in learning: Embracing curiosity as a mindset allows leaders to look at their people and organizations from an outsider's perspective. This broadens their understanding of different viewpoints, such as those of competitors or customers, leading to more well-informed decision-making.

• Respect: Treating people with decency consistently fosters equity, inclusion, and trust, and reduces conflicts. Building a culture of respect goes beyond simply avoiding disrespectful behavior. It involves genuinely valuing others' opinions and fostering a sense of community at work to promote fairness, diversity, and inclusion.

• Compassion: Leadership entails applying what you learn and going beyond empathy. It involves taking action based on others' concerns and feedback. This approach fosters collaboration, and trust, and lowers employee turnover. Compassionate leaders act on the information they receive, ensuring that their team members feel fully heard and valued.

• A clear vision is crucial for effective leadership: Clearly articulating your organization's mission and aligning individual values with overarching goals inspires commitment and purpose. Sharing the vision coherently and compellingly can help employees find meaning in their work, boosting engagement, trust, and advancing priorities.

• Effective communication: This is essential for unifying teams and bridging gaps. It involves various forms of information sharing, storytelling, feedback solicitation, and active listening. Strong communication skills are synonymous with effective leadership. Adept communicators can engage with individuals from diverse backgrounds and roles, using oral and written communication in various contexts.

• Learning agility, or the ability to adapt and learn in uncertain situations: Being a quick study and excelling in unfamiliar scenarios are signs of learning agility. With deliberate practice and effort, anyone can develop and improve their learning agility, as great leaders are also great learners.

• Collaboration:  Effective leaders collaborate with a diverse range of subordinates who have varying social identities, locations, jobs, and experiences. Good leaders find themselves crossing borders and learning to operate across different types of divides and organizational silos as the world has grown more complex and interconnected. Collaboration amongst leaders and teams, as well as across functional boundaries, fosters enhanced innovation, high-achieving teams, and an empowered and motivated workforce, to name a few advantages.

• Originality: To foster creativity within your team, it's important to acknowledge that brilliant ideas can come from a variety of sources. Creative thinking often emerges from the convergence of different viewpoints. Therefore, creating an environment that encourages learning from mistakes and embraces diverse perspectives is essential.

• Top leaders use their influence to motivate, inspire, and persuade others: A key aspect of successful leadership is the ability to influence others through the strategic use of influencing techniques. It's important to note that influence should be characterized by authenticity and openness, rather than manipulation. Building trust and demonstrating emotional intelligence is crucial for effective influence.

• Maintaining integrity is another crucial aspect of leadership: This involves being truthful, ethical, and reliable. Integrity enhances one's credibility and is essential for both individual and organizational leadership. Leaders, in particular, should prioritize integrity as they play a pivotal role in guiding the organization and making significant decisions.

• Courage is also a vital quality for leaders: Courageous leaders can confront obstacles directly and take calculated risks. Creating a culture of psychological safety at work is important, as it empowers team members to voice their opinions and concerns without fear of repercussions. This promotes a culture of honesty and courage, ultimately benefiting the organization as a whole.

• Gratitude: This is a quality that contributes to strong relationships and well-being. Expressing gratitude can lead to improved sleep, reduced anxiety, and enhanced self-esteem. As a leader, showing appreciation and gratitude to colleagues is crucial for fostering a positive work environment and motivating team members to perform at their best.

• Resilience: This is the ability to overcome adversity and bounce back from challenges. Resilient leaders demonstrate adaptability and maintain a positive attitude, enabling their teams to navigate obstacles effectively. Prioritizing both team and individual well-being is a key aspect of resilient leadership.

To excel as a great leader, it is crucial to possess self-awareness. Additionally, maintaining a curious mindset and a constant interest in learning is important for leaders. Respect forms the fundamental basis of leadership, and compassionate leadership requires taking action based on others' concerns and feedback. A clear vision is essential for effective leadership.