What makes a good leader? In recent years the business world has gone through some major, yet significant changes. The old leadership model based on toughness and discipline has become almost completely ineffective. Today, a manager has to have a personality with a high level of social competency if they want their staff to operate effectively and perform productively.
Being a leader is not an easy task, and it takes more than simply hard effort to create a successful, recognized leader. The great leader is distinguished from others by a few traits that enable them to conduct everyday operations with a distinct vision and drive.
Good leaders are aware of their personalities, they communicate effectively, delegate work, promote strategic thinking, and most importantly motivate their team to perform at their best through their role model function. In this article, we explore the context of the DNA or key characteristics that distinguish remarkable leaders as well as the qualities that enable them to overcome obstacles, drive success and make a lasting impact.
Vision and Purpose
The number one characteristic every good leader has in their DNA is leadership vision. Leadership vision highlights the actions which provide investors with a sense of the company’s path, by ensuring the long-term goals. In other words, true leaders must have a clear vision and must be able to pass the same vision clearly to their team.
Knowing what the vision of the company is, employees will be inspired and motivated to work together towards attaining the goals, will bestow referent power upon the leader, and create a strong connection that helps the business grow.
High Emotional Intelligence
In order to make a successful leader, an individual should have strong social skills or so-called business emotional intelligence. It entails managing interpersonal connections as well as controlling and expressing one’s emotions. According to unwritten rules, a good leader inspires and guides instead of giving orders. This implies that in order for coworkers to feel comfortable around and be open with their leader, a leader must make the first step and show empathy.
This means that leaders must be able to consider teammates’ feelings, be mindful of the impact of their words and actions, consider different scenarios and their emotional effects on employees, respond to conflicts and hard times instead of reacting, etc. All of these steps will help leaders foster a culture of trust, loyalty, and belonging among their teams, which will increase worker engagement and productivity.
Good Communication Skills
All good intentions and ideas are useless if they cannot be conveyed. Through communication tailored to their counterparts, in which they always remain authentic and honest, all leaders ensure that they are properly understood.
For this to succeed, they need to understand their team’s network of relationships and be able to use them for everyone’s benefit. In this way, a leader will ensure an efficient, positive working atmosphere and good relationships, both inside and outside the team.
Self-confidence and Sense of Responsibility
Only when a person shows self-confidence, there is a possibility that others will trust them, and this applies in both leadership and life. Energy, tenacity, and the ability to lead are important. They are meant to show others that your way of getting the project done is also the most promising one.
Self-organization is one of the central competencies all leaders should have.
In addition to this, all leaders must be able to take responsibility for their teams’ performance. The leader has to achieve trust by not finger-pointing to others, but by correcting a mistake as quickly as possible while learning from that mistake.
Decisiveness
A normal employee has limited authority when it comes to professional decisions, the manager, on the other hand, has to make decisions every day that determine the success or failure of the company. Some decisions are not simple, especially when it comes to disciplinary measures or dismissals.
A leader must be able to make such decisions, while being as objective as possible in certain moments and must base their decisions on facts. They must be able to relate very different parameters and see them in their contexts. Only then will a true leader be able to make well-thought-out and justifiable decisions even in very complex situations.
Risk-taker
The business environment is faced with pace and companies must take risks in order to remain competitive or expand in the market. A good leader is characterized by the fact that he does not shy away from risks. A leader is prepared to accept failure for a promising innovation. A leader acts according to the conviction that failure should always be taken into account when taking the risk of an innovation. If things go wrong, a strong leader can also own up to mistakes made and take responsibility for them, as it is explained earlier.
The DNA of a good leader is certainly a complex one, which is why only some can develop into this position. Good managers are not born overnight, it takes time, patience, practice, and a whole load of different experiences to become one. If you are empathetic, have good communication skills, and rely on your skills, you are already halfway to becoming a good leader.
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Source: Vietnam Insider