6 Characteristics of a Good Leader

Leaders get things done and are responsible for the success of organizations, communities, and nations. Without proper leaders, the world would simply cease to exist or slowly crumble around you. Good leaders are crucial to influence or guide others and make crucial lifesaving decisions and keep things functioning. The following are six common characteristics that a good leader possesses:

Empathetic

Being empathetic means that you can feel others' pain or emotions without physically experiencing the situation or trauma itself. This is important leadership quality as it allows you to be open and transparent with communication. If you understand your employees' needs or situations, you can better relate and find ways to communicate effectively.

Mindful

Good leaders are mindful of others, their actions, and body language. You are a good leader if you understand the importance of proper body language and how it can affect those around you. You won’t see good leaders talk without permission or over others.

Respectful

Good leaders understand that respect is a two-way road. You cannot expect respect without offering it yourself. Successful leaders don’t use roles to communicate or control the room; It starts with respect.

Influential and Inspirational

Being a good leader isn’t about dictating to get important things done. It is about having the ability to inspire or influence another. This is best done by example. Show up to work on time, complete tasks on or before your deadlines, and offer tips, tricks, or advice that work for you instead of being demanding.

Confident and Committed

Having confidence in your abilities and being committed to the work or improving is essential. You cannot expect others to follow your lead or finish tasks on time if you don’t care about or are confident in your work.

Manifest Integrity

Being a leader means the result is up to you, and only you to get it done. That’s why good leaders must manifest integrity or honesty. Always committing to your morals is another way to inspire people to do the right thing. If you are always consistent in your action's others will want to be the same.

If you don’t possess these traits, it’s unlikely that you will be successful at leadership. However, it can be learned and trained just like any other skill. Learn to adapt and practice these traits to improve and become a better leader.

How to Think Like a Leader

If you are trying to become a leader in your field, it will help you to understand how leaders think and act. There are things that effective leaders have in common that they do well. Leaders have a moral obligation to society, to be honest about their goals and vision for what they are trying to achieve so that their followers aren’t misled.

Share Your Vision Effectively

Excellent communication skills are imperative if you want to be able to think like a leader. Learn as much as you can about human nature and how people communicate in their environments to help you bring your vision to life to your team using the terms they understand.

Show Your Empathy

A truly effective leader can put themselves in someone else’s shoes and feel something. If you can’t look at others and understand their feelings based on past experiences, even if you’re not in their shoes, literally, you may want to practice. Find ways to show that you have empathy for other humans.

Listen More Than You Talk

A genuinely beautiful trait of a good leader is the ability to listen to what others are saying. Listening more than you talk will go a long way to helping you think more like a leader because you’re going to learn more when you listen.

Practice Confidence and Authenticity

Leaders usually exude confidence, but some leaders are faking it. Sadly, faking it until you make it is not really that good of advice because you’ll feel like a fraud. Instead, it’s okay to say you’re nervous about public speaking, or whatever it is, openly while still doing it confidently.

Put the Mission First

One way to be a good leader is to become mission focused. Sharing with others the mission in a way that helps others also want to put the mission first will require a lot of talent on your part because people want to distract you, but the mission is the goal or point of everything.

Practice Action Focused Goal Setting

Learning how to set goals that can turn into daily action for you and others is an essential function of a leader. Learn all you can about setting SMART goals and practice it in all parts of your life so that you will become a more goal-oriented mission-focused leader.

Be the Example

If you want to be a leader, you must do precisely what you say for others to do. In other words, practice what you preach. If you tell others that they need to save money for retirement and you’re not doing it, what kind of leader are you? If you blog about minimalism, but secretly you are a hoarder, you will be discovered.

Engage and Connect with Your People

As a leader, sometimes, the people you lead will not just open their lives to you or communicate with you until you open the door. Take the time to truly engage and connect with your people on an authentic level.

Roll Up Your Sleeves

Get to work yourself and do the things with your team. If you’re not afraid to scrub a toilet, neither will your kid be right? The same happens if you are a small business owner or project manager. If you’re okay with getting in there and working hard, everyone else will want to as well.

Being a leader carries enormous responsibility. Maintaining your values and character is essential to continue being a leader that others look up to and want to follow and emulate. Use your skills wisely.