Our work with thousands of leaders inside corporations highlights the need for a higher level of leadership. Too often, we find most leaders today struggling with their workloads, or the company’s new direction, or their lack of confidence in the Senior Talent at the top.
Leading others, is an awesome responsibility with the potential for great rewards. Leaders learn about their capabilities–their strengths and weaknesses–when they engage and interact with others. The leader who can recognize that “one style” does not fit all, indeed that all styles can be effective on a team stands a chance of creating a high performance team. When a leader meets his talent at the heart of their true gifts, he/she opens up to the potential of both the talent on the team and his/her own potential. In today’s organizations, the leaders we have seen achieve the most success possess these 10 essential leadership qualities:
- Attract top talent to work on their team by role modeling and creating an environment that others want to be part of
- Create a clear and compelling vision for success for all team members
- Communicate with fierce clarity and validate that the message has cascaded the team and the organization
- Develop the talent on their team by pushing, inspiring and coaching their team members to reach their full potential
- Foster a learning mindset that inspires their people to seek new innovative ways of tackling problems
- Celebrate diverse styles, skills and viewpoints
- Network with others both inside their team and outside their team for increased collaboration and to understand new ways of doing things
- Ask questions without knowing the answers, showing team members a natural curiosity that is inspiring and contagious
- Bring solutions, not problems to the team while still courageously calling out potential pitfalls
- Show they care–a lot
Are you leading your team to a higher performance? If not, what quality on this list do you need to add?