Leadership Traits – A great List
What are the qualities and characteristics of a good leader? Great leaders possess core leadership traits and skills. The list includes the most important leadership qualities and skills to look for in a great leader. These are must-have traits of a powerful and successful leader, the qualities a leader possess to be great.
A broad classification to six categories of traits is also done below:
Physical Characteristics of the Leader:
- Age
- Height
- Weight
- Alertness
- Energetic
- Masculinity
- High energy level
- Physical stamina
- Tolerance for stress
- Not concerned about being overworked
- Vitality
Background Characteristics of the Leader:
- Education
- Social Status
- Mobility
- Experience
- Experience in a variety of different types of situations
- Broader perspective
- Expertise in dealing with different types of problems
- Competent and skilled
Intelligence Characteristics of the Leader:
- Ability
- Judgment
- Knowledge
- Clever (intelligent)
- Conceptually skilled
- Creative
- Knowledgeable about group task
- Intellectual breadth
- Insight
- Learns from experience
- Adapts to change
- Good judgment
- Foresight
- Intuition
- Creativity
- Self-knowledge
- Coordinator
- Objective
- Decisive
- Asks for more responsibility
- Knows how to delegate
Personality/Emotional Characteristics of the Leader:
- Aggressiveness
- Alertness
- Dominance
- Decisiveness
- Enthusiasm
- Extroversion
- Independence
- Self-confidence
- Authoritarianism
- Assertive
- Tolerant of stress
- Conservatism
- Desire to improve
- Understands own strengths and weaknesses
- Self-objectivity
- Emotional intelligence
- Self-awareness
- Empathy
- Self-regulation
- Ambitious
- Courageous
- Knows self
- Risk taker
- Not intimidated by superiors
- Personal competence
- Optimistic
- Exhibits concern for others
- Encourages and engages opposing viewpoints
- Constant and reliable
- Self-disciplined
- Determination
- Need to achieve
- Caring
- Empathizing
- Constancy
Task-Oriented Characteristics of the Leader:
- Achievement Needs
- Responsibility
- Initiative
- Persistence
- Ambitiousness
- Achievement-orientated
- Decisive
- Persistent
- Willingness to assume responsibility
- Organized (administrative ability)
Social Characteristics of the Leader:
- Sociability
- Supervisory Ability
- Cooperativeness
- Popularity
- Prestige
- Tact
- Diplomacy
- Adaptability
- Adjustment
- Cooperative
- Dependable
- Tactful
- Persuasive
- Socially skilled
- Emotional stability and composure
- Good interpersonal skills
- Well-adjusted
- Oriented toward improving self
- Detached
- Honest
- Ethical
- Trustworthy
- Behavioral flexibility
- Understanding
- Empathy
- Social Insight
- Charm
- Tact
- Diplomacy
- Persuasiveness
- Listener
- Collaborative
- Strong motivator
- Cooperative
- Influencer
Communication:
- Ability to communicate
- Ability to articulate a vision
- Ability to persuade others
- Communicate purpose
- Communicate direction
- Communicates passion to others
- Good communication skills
- Use metaphors
- Experts at one-to-one communication
- Superior speakers
- Excellent writing skills
- Creates and maintains a communications network
- Has people keep them informed on problem situations
- Networks with people inside the organization
- Maintains contacts outside the organization
- Doesn’t depend on only one source for information
- Able to communicate with key individuals
- Eager to explore new approaches to their work
- Are not fuzzy about results, interested in ways to track their progress
- Communicates persuasively
Related Links
You May Also Like
-
Process & Stages of Creativity
Creative ideas do not come just like that. There is a process to it. There are a number of techniques of creativity to support the generation of ideas but the widely practiced ones are brainstorming and lateral thinking. Most innovations are not so much the product of sudden insights as they are the result of a conscious process that often goes through multiple stages. The creative process can be divided into four stages of preparation, incubation, evaluation, and implementation.
-
Leadership traits refer to personal qualities that define effective leaders. Here are the major leadership qualities that can make someone a good leader. Five key traits that are common in leaders can be learned and sharpened with time.
-
Transformational Theories of Leadership
Transformational leadership theories focus on the leadership approach where the leader encourages, inspires employees to innovate and create positive and valuable organizational change. A transformational leader works towards “transforming” the culture to one that cultivates trust, mutual admiration, loyalty, and respect with the end goal of developing followers into leaders. Transformational leaders are known to be visionary, inspiring, daring, risk-takers, and thoughtful.
-
Trait theories of leadership identify the specific personality traits that distinguish leaders from non-leaders. The trait model of leadership is based on the traits or characteristics of leaders that make them successful in their leading role. These theories use heritable attributes to predict leadership effectiveness.
-
Communication has as its central objective the transmission of meaning. The process of communication is successful only when the receiver understands an idea as the sender intended it. How does a message or an idea travel from one person to another? To transmit our message, we engage in a sensitive and complex process of communication, with different elements like sender, message, channels, receiver, noise, and feedback.
-
The Hersey and Blanchard Situational Theory model suggests that a leader must adapt his leadership style based on task and relationship behaviors appropriate to the situation. Leadership style is dependent on the maturity level and abilities of followers. Under this model, successful leadership is both task-relevant and relationship-relevant.
-
The skills approach to leadership suggests that certain skills are important for effective leadership. Skills are what leaders can learn and develop, whereas traits are innate characteristics. The main skills needed for leadership, according to one such theory, are technical, human, and conceptual.
-
Authentic leadership is a new approach to leadership in which leaders are genuine, self-aware, transparent, build honest relationships, and work on an ethical foundation. Authenticity is one of the core values of leadership. Authentic leaders have truthful self-concepts and they inspire by promoting openness by acting in a real, genuine, and sincere way. Authenticity requires self-awareness and the ability to act in accordance with one's true self.
-
Symbolic Interaction and Social Change
George Herbert Mead, an American philosopher, affiliated with the University of Chicago founded the theory of symbolic interactionism. A major aspect of this is that people interact by symbols both verbal and non-verbal signals and every interaction makes a contribution to the mental make-up of the mind thus every interaction with someone, changes you and you go away a different person signifying that humans and change go together.
-
Attribution Theory of Leadership
The attribution theory of leadership deals with the formation of individual opinions about the reasons for particular events or observations. People will always try to understand why people do what they do. The leader will make a judgment about his employees based on his attribution of the causes of the employees' performance. Individuals will also make inferences about the leader and react to poor performance by the leader.
