Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Bob Iger, Reed Hastings, Mary Barra and the list is endless… What made these people a successful leader? Were they born to be successful or was it something else? Can these traits be acquired? If you want to know answers to all these questions, you are reading the right article. 

Someone has rightly said,

 “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.” 

With the passing time, companies come and go but some companies last for ages and the secret behind these companies is great leadership. Great leaders have the ability to motivate their employees and help them to visualize their goals and sync it with that of the organization. They have the charisma to hold the employees, investors and consumers together and build a company with a clear vision. Tim Cook, the CEO of APPLE, Sheryl Sandberg the COO of Facebook, Iger the executive chairman and former CEO of Disney, Hastings the cofounder of Netflix, Mary Barra, the CEO of GM motors are all examples of great leaders and visionaries. Not all of these leaders were born leaders but they acquired these leadership traits with passing time. There is no fixed path that they took, which leads to success but what is common amongst them are these 11 traits, which help them achieve what they want. 

So let’s have a look at these 11 powerful traits behind successful leadership –

• Effective Communicator

Successful leaders are effective communicators and they know when to talk, how to talk and when to listen. They can clearly explain the goals of the organization or special tasks to their employees in an effective manner. The leaders must clearly explain the task to the employees and set an expectation for them. The communication should happen at all levels – one to one, with the entire department or staff via direct, email, phone or social media. 

A leader should be approachable and should involve people from all levels. He should be a good listener and help people to fix their problem whether professional or personal level. 

• Goal setter 

The leader sets clear goals for their team and organization and motivates and influences the team to achieve them. He will never give up on things easily and always find ways or solutions to achieve his goals. 

• Accountable and Responsible

Good leaders hold themselves responsible for any mistake or failure. They set an example for the entire team to follow him/her if they have committed a mistake. They support their team members and encourage them to experiment and innovate even if they fail. 

• Visionary

A visionary is a person who knows the future and makes concrete goals that will benefit the organization. He knows how to strike a balance between stability and growth and how much to take the risk. He foresees the change around him and takes the necessary steps and approaches to adapt to the change. The leader has to be strong in making necessary decisions but not rigid in case there is a better possibility available. 

• Fostering Creativity and Innovation

Just like Darwin’s theory of evolution, you have to continuously adapt and evolve over time and if you will fail to evolve, you will perish. The same rule is applicable to organizations. If a company is rigid about its own ideology and not evolve or create things that the market wants, it will soon perish. A leader has to foster creativity and innovation in its employees and constantly train them with new technologies. When the team will grow, the leader will grow and so will the company. 

• Effective Relationship

Building relationships is not restricted to the professional level. A true leader shares a personal relationship with the employee. The relationship should be so strong that an employee can depend on his boss for anything. 

• Influencer

A leader influences and inspires their employees to work towards the company’s mission and goals. It encourages people to become self-driven towards the company’s vision. It empowers people with goals and motivates them continuously to strive to achieve them. This is a true leadership trait. But it cannot be achieved just by communicating. The leaders must lead by examples. He should set examples for his team so they can follow. 

• Empathy

Another vital leadership competency is empathy. A leader understands the needs of his team and is aware of their feelings and thoughts. With this quality, he can understand his team members well and bring the best out of them. A leader should empathize and support their team members in need. A leader can understand the root cause of poor performance and can help the employee improve and excel. It also gives a chance to grow the relationship between employer and employee. 

• Integrity

Integrity refers to trust, reliability and honesty. This is a very important trait required to be successful in any field. You need to be trustworthy and you need to be surrounded by people who are trustworthy. Once you build this trait within and around yourself, you function as a strong team and no one can stop you from achieving your goals. 

Leaders with integrity take accountability for any mistake done by them or by their team. They try to understand why mistakes happened, learn from them and make new paths to achieve their targets rather than blaming others. They need to drive their team and organization with integrity and carve proper practices, methodologies and values to create a good working environment for the organization. 

• Quick learner

True leaders are quick observers who can perceive the problem, quick thinkers to understand what caused the problem and quick in finding solutions. They have good analytical and critical thinking skills and they adapt well to new technology or uncertainties. Their constant curiosity to know sets them apart from the crowd. They always desire to learn new and implement them quickly in the current scenario. 

• Team builder

The ability to create and lead a successful team is vital for any leader. The performance of any leader is determined by the performance of the team. A leader should constantly fuel his team to achieve the set goals and should celebrate every little success of the team. Even if the team fails, he should take accountability for the failure and never blame his team member. Also, building the same culture within the team is also very important for the success of the organization. Practising integrity and empathy within a team will always help a leader to achieve a strong and reliable team. 

Conclusion

There is no fixed path or road to success. But to achieve the success you need to practice these traits consistently. You need to hold people together and you need to build teams in order to achieve your mission. You need to learn from mistakes and evolve from them. You need to be ready for future challenges and that will define – who you are.