What are the characteristics and qualities of a good leader? This article aims to answer this question. Every manager wants to know how to be a good leader.
The ability to lead requires a great combination of attributes, skills, traits, and characteristics that will make your staff happy to follow you.
Some of the characteristics of a good leader are obvious. Other leadership qualities are a little bit hidden but are still as important to every great and effective manager.
In our previous article, we published a leadership skills list. Here we will show you 5 of the best leadership characteristics, attributes, and qualities of a good leader and how important they are.
Table of Contents
What are the characteristics and qualities of a good leader?
Good leaders communicate effectively
Communication skills are the basic skills of every business area and level, including good leadership. One of the main parts of manager’s job is to communicate. But what is the most important here is to do this in the right way that will be beneficial for the company.
For some people “effective communication skills” sounds like something that all of us can do. What do you think? Do we have the same ability to make people do what we want just with conversations? A good leader is a great communicator.
Effective communication skills are among the top characteristics and qualities of a good leader. Every day you have to communicate with staff, with business partners, competitors, other level managers, customers and other different people.
What will happen if your communication is ineffective? How will this influence your business? The answer is obvious. That is why effective communication skills are some of the best qualities and characteristics of a good leader.
A good manager uses communications to establish and modify relationships in the way he wants.
He uses communications to inspire, to motivate, to delegate, to create, to give hope, to win respect, to lead, and for almost everything else in the business.
If you think you are not a good communicator, learn technics and tips to improve your communication abilities. As the main leadership characteristic, communication skills can be improved significantly.
Examples of Good Communication Skills are: listening skills, body language, being clear, concise, positive, patient, confident and respectful. These leadership attributes are not easy to learn but are a must for every great leader. These traits partially answer the question what are the qualities of a good leader.
A good leader has the ability to resolve problems and to find out solutions that work
We always face different types of problematic situations in our personal life and work. But how we resolve these problems?
A good leader has to resolve problems in the most effective way for the company. He has to minimize the risks and the bad consequences of problems and have to recognize and use the opportunities even in the most difficult situations.
Learn to look problems from different perspectives.
Reading between the lines and seeing what is not so obvious is one of the best characteristics of a good leader. You have to be able to come up with the right solutions.
Yes, it sounds difficult. But the ability to resolve problems is on the top of the qualities of a good leader. Learning how to resolve problems is a lifelong process.
Some of the abilities that you need for successful problem-solving skills are: defining and analyze the problems, monitoring, making decisions, generating and selecting alternatives and more. The combination of these abilities forms qualities of a good leader.
The ability to organize people and resources
The ability to organize is one of the essential qualities of a good leader and manager. Organizing other people will always be one of the most difficult and challenging manager tasks.
If you want to be a good leader you should have the ability to organize your team and resources. Learning and developing organization skills is a must for every leader.
Some of the main organization skills are prioritization, goal setting, identifying problems, time management skills, meeting deadlines, scheduling, task delegating, planning, providing feedback, researching, task analysis and more.
The successful combination of these attributes is a part of the greatest characteristics of a good leader.
Delegating task to the right people
Delegating tasks and responsibilities to the right people is one of the good qualities of a leader too. You are not able to do all tasks on your own. You have to delegate effectively.
Delegating doesn’t mean to find out someone who will do the task instead of you. This is a big NO.
A good leader knows well the strengths and weaknesses of every member of his team.
This helps him to pick the best people for the job. Development and success of the company depend on the proper delegation.
Effective leadership requires to ensure that delegation happens properly and to manage the delegation process. Delegating tasks is a crucial characteristic of a good leader.
Good leadership requires charisma and ability to motivate
Charisma and ability to motivate are vital characteristics and qualities of a good leader.
Most effective leaders are charismatic. Charisma is the main tool and attribute of a good leader. Charisma allows you to influence your staff via your interpersonal traits.
Leadership charisma motivates people and makes them want to follow you and to like you.
Then, how to be a good leader without charisma?
Motivate and keeping people motivated is one of the vital qualities of a good leader too. To be effective leader you have to know what motivate the people of your team (their beliefs, interests, aims, goals, hopes).
Download Qualities of a good leader Infographic in PDF for free.