A proposed leader must have specific qualities that suit his or her ability to lead an organization or department. These qualities can be learned, acquired through education, or be adapted by new skills and technologies. Although these qualities are mainly required for mid to upper management positions, it is important to have other employees in the organization who also have these skills and abilities. This is to secure quality improvement processes are secure and organizational standards are being kept up to date.
leaderships is not merely leading mob or party rather it has responsibility to possess driving capacities and mobilization.Leadership shapes the orientation and approach towards life and growth,it should have charismatic personality as well to lead the people in right direction.
Dustin,
yes, I absolutely agree with you, that in specific functions, also holders of lower level management positions such as team leaders, initiative or project leaders and even individual contributors need some leadership skills. You already addressed some of these functions - quality and process management as well as internal control and audit certainly belong among those.
Why is it so important that this type of function holders has leadership qualities?
Because they all have to deal with change. Whether it is about
- achieving quality goals by adhering to standardized practices
- improving processes by doing something in a more efficient way
- assure adherence to organizational rules & regulations by executing internal control or audits
all need the capability to continuously "preach" and teach the three to five top goals and strategies to achieve them, to continuously demonstrate how important they are, to get the buy-in of the members of their organization and their active contribution.
In order to achieve this, these "function specific leaders" do not only need to be competent in their respective domain. No, they have to be passionate and convincing, pro-active and good team players. They need social competence and a thorough understanding of the people in their organizations, of the challenges they are dealing with, the facts that motivate them, their goals and hidden agendas.
I believe that the question is regarding the organizational leadership traits. Hence, I would like to expand the word ' leader ' in way that would describe the traits. L- Leading to inspire others to achieve the goal. E- Effective in managing the people ethically and truthfully. A- Achieving the desired goal for the people without having any personal ambition. D-Developing the people while leading them. E-Exemplifying the commitment and conviction for leading the change. R- Rationalizing the activities to achieve the goal within the time target.
I believe that "Innovativeness" is an most important trait for any leader. He must have the capability to 'think' which are unthinkable by others.
There are many leadership theories. One of them is the traits theory which has lately receivd a lot of criticism. Anyhow, I think that the most valuable traits of a leader are: Initiatives, Enthusiasm, Judgement, Justice, Knowledge, priority setting, and creative thinking.
In organizational enviornment, leaders need to deal with various factors, either external and internal. For a simple problem, there exist few norms and systems. Leaders role becomes eminent when decisions have to be made on important matters. For a smooth sailing of the organization, developing systems and norms are important.
As to the traits of a leader, while a long list can be drawn, but in reality how leader percieve and take up the issue is very important. That in turn depends upon the prevailing social, political, economical situations as well. Understand the current reality and taking the right decision is what makes a leader effective.
I recommend you my recent article:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259383198_The_impact_of_leadership_on_the_quality_management_systems?ev=prf_pub
I wrote there, what characteristics should have a leader and a charismatic leader.
Agnieszka
Conference Paper The impact of leadership on the quality management systems
Dear John.
Your researches are very interesting. My scientific area is the quality management. I did'nt go into details whether charisma can be taught. For me it's important that the manager without charisma is no leader.
Regards
Agnieszka
Real life situation is quite different in the organization. Of course , charismatic and instrumental behavior of leaders help to make them success. What I do feel that situation, ability and decisions are crucial . Analyzing the situation and making right decisions makes leader successful in practical life.
Yes John, agreed that experience, expertise and charisma help leader to realize the situation and make right decisions.
Charismatic people to not usually make the best leaders. I do agree with a lot being written. Investing in your people/staff is very important.
PLease see attached quote:
In my opinion the most valuable traist of a leader are his or her soft skills, see..https://www.academia.edu/5608289/Soft_skills_on_TQM_in_Higher_education
I feel that the most important 'trait' is credibility in what they say and do, as well as giving others a sense of purpose and meaning. This may come about when people find the leader trustworthy, where ability (practical intelligence, problem solving and creativity), benevolence and integrity are key components. Trustworthiness was also the trait that was uppermost in most cultures in the Globe studies.
It seems strange that we still talk about leadership that seems to be close to the Great Man theory. I am sure that this would relate to people's implicit theories of leadership, and one that might also lead academics in how they undertake their studies, that is, their implicit theories of leadership and the variables that they choose..
A leader needs to have integrity and one who is people centred. A person who is able to energise and empower employees.
Furthermore the ten core principles of servant leadership:
• Awareness
• Building Community
• Empathy
• Foresight
• Improvement Healing
• Listening
• Mentoring
• Persuasion
• Stewardship
• Visioning
Robert Greenleaf. Servant Leadership ISBN 0-8091-0554-3
I believe in getting right to the essence of the issue. There are three traits that define successful leaders. They are: 1) Coaching- Can they help their people become good at what they do? 2) Commanding- Can they take charge when they need to without micromanaging? and 3) Creating-Can they create an atmosphere in which their team can thrive?
Everything else being talked about really boils down to these three traits. you can read the details in my book which is available for free here to my academic colleagues.
Book The BossHole Effect, Three Simple Steps Anyone Can Follow to...
Good question in that we would all like to know and then get into the anointing business. Michaela has many of the preferred traits listed, but I would add that there is no one-size-fits-all inventory for this reason:
The question thus needs to be reframed. A leader must have willing followers. Thus, "a leader" is actually determined by the culture in which they are immersed. If one examines traditional societies to prehistoric times the leader was the person most adept at delivering goodies to the rest, be it the most proficient and strategic thinking hunter to the village head man in Indonesian culture who could essentially throw the best party (Indonesia being an abundance society in terms of food resources). The archaic word for government in Japan is matsuri-no-goto, which roughly translates into the bringer of festivals.
I am of course focusing on political leadership, but I think much of this can be generalized. In summary first investigate the culture and its norms first. The qualities of military leadership are far different than those required to be an orchestra leader or say, mayor of a diverse multi-constituent city.
There are "transformational leaders" who can shift paradigms, but that is another story. I would make just one point on that aspect that many of the "great man" figures of history were not of the cultures they transformed.
Alexander the Great was not Greek but Macedonian
Genghis Khan was not Chinese but Mongolian
Hitler was not German but Austrian
Napoleon was not French but Corsican (grew up speaking Italian)
Stalin was not Russian but Georgian
One can effectively argue that the individual who had the greatest impact on contemporary Japanese culture was General Douglas MacArthur during his time as military governor there.
These were mostly notorious figures of course, but their respective visions shifted the values of the nations they came to command. In part they came at inflection points in those societies, but certainly then shifted the trajectories in profound ways.
Great leaders can follow as well as they lead. As previously stated, leaders listen and follow through on their stated and written actions.
I agree that it is important for all participants in the organization to have leadership skills, but not for the sake of aiding the leader, but for the effective operation of the organization. Our old linear, top down paradigm of organizations in which there is a "chess master" guiding and directing the organization requires "enlightened" followers who can implement directives. In the real world of Complex adaptive systems, all participants are leaders and followers driven by the shared vision and organizational goals, not strategic plans developed by management in a dark room somewhere!
In CAS, leadership is influence and it flows throughout the organization. It does not reside in one anointed guru!
Do you know these two videos? Both about the importance of followers....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO8MwBZl-Vc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEibXYc-caY
Having a clear sense of purpose and commitment towards attaining is one important quality for a leader to be successful. Along with this must have the drive to influence and lead the staff towards that purpose.
I love the Taoist thinking on leadership:
A leader is best
When people barely know he exists,
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him,
Worse when they despise him.
But of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled.
They will say:
We did it ourselves.
Lao-Tzu, 6th century Chinese Philosopher
Some of the leadership characteristics also depend on the scope of the leadership task. The successful CEO of a large public company may be successful through a very motivating but abstract approach, the leader of a small research project may need to have a high qualification and understanding of the detail to be accepted.
A leader must have a vision, must be firm in decision making and must be a person of strong character. A leader must also have courage and a motivator.
There is no standard set of ideal traits because leadership is often culture-bound and historically contextualized. I remember both from personal experience in Korea in the late-70s and from conversation with faculty at the American University in Cairo two years ago how often and how alarmingly we would read essays on leadership praising Adolf Hitler. Our popular notions of leadership are immersed in our own culture and colors our views. Thus "leaders" in the normative sense are those with willing followers. But leaders that history vindicates tend to be those who perhaps saw too far and often got it in the neck in their own times. Those are the ones we subsequently call prophets.
I'd agree that there is no "one size" solution here.
For a tour of leadership theory, suggest you take a look at Peter Northouse's book: http://bit.ly/1na5px6
Personally, I find Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Challenge instructive and it includes five practices: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and last but certainly not least, they Encourage the Heart. http://bit.ly/1asKnJI
If you are interested in a "practices" rather than a "traits" perspective on effective leadership, I suggest you take a look at this recent paper that uses complexity science as a model: .http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=managementfacpub
First and foremost, leaders must take care of their people. Most emphasis in leadership training and the literature is on "motivating your people." However, in today's highly complex organizational environment, great leaders must understand and manage complex systems from a systems perspective which in turn creates the environment for people to do their best work. If leaders/mangers are not managing and improving the system (with the engagement of their people) then they are likely to make the following errors on an ongoing basis - (1) blaming people for what are actually system issues, or (2) attributing what are actually people issues to system problems. Consequently, leaders must lead from a position of knowledge of their system and people so they can make the necessary distinctions between system and people issues as well as the muddy part that is a function of both systems and people. Only then can a leader determine the most appropriate intervention(s) and continue to have the support of his/her people.
Bryan R. Cole
Professor Emeritus
Educational Administration
Texas A&M University
Considering that leadership is a power relationship between the leader and the followers, (my thesis on US leadership image in 2000), the effective traits of the leader in my view should focus on the way he/she manages this power. The entire discussion, therefore, shall concentrate in the fashion with which the leader convinces the followers. It requires a great deal of personal credentials as well as traits that can be attained through education and experience. I do agree that some traits can be acquirable but we shall never forget that true and effective leaders are born with the traits to convince, to inspire, to be able to ascertain the challenges ahead and consequently form policies for all to follow and most importantly, ascertain the needs of their followers and thus manage their expectations accordingly. This is my understanding of the required traits. Sometimes the best schools on the planet cannot replace the ability of some individuals to distinguish themselves from the all the rest. To me, this is the challenge. To look for those individuals, further improve their skills through education and training, and allow them to lead freely.
@ Fotini, I do agree that the traits of leader is the ability to manage power and convince the followers. At the same time we have to be causious that over centralized power of a leader may kill the proactive and innovative behaviour of employees. There is a need to balance the power. While some degree of agreement remain with that the leaders are born, more than that in todays world focus should be on leaders are made.
Hi everyone,
Ability and Flexibility,
that is, every situation has its own leader.
Leadership theories, matrices, models.... deal with this topic as a mathematical equation (1+1=2), while in realty contingency theory is the Boos
Hello from me. I've been thinking and researching the topic very much and for me, successful leader need to have high scores on the five factors: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Of course, every leader have unique personality, but being deeply human, ethical, having internal locus of control, being flexible, creative and using critical and system thinking when proposing new ideas and future goals for the organizations.
Most of these trait are stable, so it's important for every leader to be very aware of her/himself and others, the weaknesses and strengths!
So, having the leadership potential is very important. And then depending on the situation, the environment and the followers, leadership will occur!
In my opinion, the most valuable traits in a leader include the ability to make decisions. Effective leaders are able to make decisions, often without all of the necessary information. An effective leader however will proceed on the best information available and make a correction if necessary at a later date if more information is made available.
Other important attributes include honesty and integrity. These qualities command respect and more importantly, set the bar for staff and other employees.
I also feel that openness and good communication are essential. This means communicating so that staff feel that there are no hidden agendas. This also means listening to concerns that staff may have. An open door policy is essential in creating harmony among the team members.
An effective leader is also generous with praise when it is warranted. This could be a verbal comment, or a written note. These small actions create enormous goodwill and are appreciated by staff receiving them.
Finally, an effective leader organizes staff meetings regularly and conducts round tables. What has everyone been working on? This creates all kinds of opportunities for collaboration, sharing information and expertise, and simply getting to know one another a little better.
A final thought - a valuable leader has a sense of humour and a positive outlook on life.
I think the most valuable traits of a leader is honesty and trust building between the leader and followers.
I would suggest servant leadership. It inverts the paradigm of the leader as "boss" and emphasizes the power of leadership that puts followers first.
I believe that the most valuable traits of a leader depend on the preferences of the follower to a certain extent. In order for leadership to exist, there must be people to lead. From this perspective, it is the followers who construct the definition and the phenomenon of leadership (Carsten, Uhl-Bien, West, Patera & McGregior, 2010; Shondrick & Lord, 2010). Foti, Bray, Thompson and Allgood (2012) showed that some followers prefer their leaders to be highly sensitive, intelligent, dedicated and charismatic. Other followers however preferred more autocratic or laissez-faire leadership styles. Therefore, the most valuable traits a leader can possess depend, in part, on the followers' prototype of a leader.
There is a lot of interesting work on leadership from the field of Behavioural Ecology that shows leadership is not only positively related to a boldness personality trait but the result of positive social feedback between individuals who thereby increasingly divide into leading and following positions. Work I am currently doing in fish furthermore shows that it is also your previous leadership experiences that may affect your future confidence as a leader and that differences in sociability play an important role. If you'd like I could sent you a couple recent papers.
Ability to inspire people to follow and commit to your vision! Can you make people do something because you have convinced them to the extent of just wanting to do it out of sheer belief in, and love for it? If the answer is YES, then you are a true leader and the rest of the qualities posted here will only enhance your abilities to influence changes.
Trait theory is giving way to transformational leadership and servant leadership. But if you insist on some traits, I would say: it is inspiring his or her people to a shared vision; honesty; credibility; empathizing with the followers; being fair and just; caring for the followers and relating with them; celebrating excellence; leading by example; involving followers in the visioning process, as also implementation; measuring the success; and trusting and empowerment.
In my opinion the most valuable traits of a leader are: the vision, the strength of character, determination, energy and self-confidence, be very competent at work, great communication skills, ability to identify opportunities and overcome the fear of mistakes, ability to establish goals and objectives, promote teamwork and be able to inspire people in major doses of passion, energy and enthusiasm.
There is substantial research findings on the prototype leader behaviours in the GLOBE project. I would look at the collective volume:
R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. Dorfman, & V. Gupta (Eds.), Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies: 3-8. Thousand Oaks, London: Sage.
The question that you pose tends to take one approach to the study of leadership (functionalist perspective re: traits). However, there is an article that highlights a number of different approaches, including interpretive approach, critical approach and critical performative approach. To focus on leadership traits suffers from the weaknesses of the functional approach. See Alvesson, M & Spicer, A, 2012, ‘Critical leadership studies: The case for critical performativity’, Human Relations, vol. 65, no. 3, pp. 367-390. They offer a more holistic approach in the possible study of leadership, including 'traits' (and situations) that may both address 'good' and the 'bad' aspects of leadership and how both may be addressed.
Two primary traits or abilities are as follows:
1. Situational awareness
2. Situational response
Two secondary traits or abilities are as follows:
3. Cognitive empathy
4. Social skills
I believe in two major qualifications of leaders: honesty and ability which create the ideal leader in all situations.
I agree with Michaela on the characteristics cited above and I would add that the ability of a leader to crystallise vision and provide direction is paramount. But these are the outcomes of a complex process that engages him with his followers. Such engagement entails that the leaders communicates his vision and direction clearly, while putting his emotional intelligence to work.
An awareness of your own strengths and areas where you can improve and the ability to work with people.
Typical traits
a) clarity about vision and action that follows,
b) clarity of purpose,
c) Following what he/she talks
d)Taking people around him, and
e) concern for all (followers)
In my book The Crisis Leader, I summarized a number of traits that leaders who deal with challenging times (crisis) need to have:
Humility
Courage
Conviction
Authenticity
Kindness
You can see a sample out of my book under my publications. Full version on Amazon.
1) A good listener and communicator
2) Able to reserve judgement
3) Able to understand people and relate
4) Able to understand an objective, simplify variables and make fact based decisions
5) Able to engage, earn respect and motivate employees
6) Able to see the big picture
All of the traits noted above are good ones for leaders to posess: i particularly like Dr Olafsson's short but potent list of traits for leading in times of crisis.
Direct and personal experience can teach a great deal about the things (traits) that matter most in the day-to-day life of a "leader". Having served as a university Vice president for five years and President for eleven, I would say that the most critical traits for leading successfully and over time are trust, predictability, competence and vision.
The most important trait, in my opinion, is patience, in endless abundance.
Do you know what you are doing and where you want the organization to go?
Do you communicate a vision of the future to everyone in the organization?
Does everyone understand it and want to actualize it?
Are you consistent- do you convey the same message on Friday that you delivered on Monday in all situations, big and small?
Are you always, invariably, fair and kind?
Are you always aware of the fact that every single thing you do will teach people something, particularly about your real values?
These traits will go a long way in support of your role as a leader
I don't believe in trait theories of leadership or that a person is born with endowed capabilities to influence others. Leadership by its very nature is a learned human skill.
If, on the other hand, I had to define a universal "quality" of a leader that transcends theories of leadership, I would argue that a person who has the ability to provoke in others a strong desire to be proactively engaged in the leader's course of action, inside or outside the leader's physical presence, would be a leadership quality.
S/he should inspire her/his followers towards buying into the shared vision, and involve and empower them in its implementation and measuring the attainments.
For me the most crucial characteristic of a leader are honesty,trusty,deliver in outcome, and inspiry.
A leader is a person who has assumed the responsibility to serve others diligently. There are different types of leaders: cultural or traditional, institutional, political, military, or professional leaders. Leaders do well if they are considered to be trusted, competent, moral, upright or honest, reliable, loving, supportive, inspiring, successful, kind, forgiving, caring, humble, brave, tolerant, accountable, and innovative in favour of the welfare of the people they are leading among others.
I share Dyer's opinion and want to add that good leader should be level headed, resilient and should exhibit emotional stability in times of crises
For the masses to follow there must be belief in the planned path and the projected destination which in turn requires a sense of belief in the leader so: Yes to all of the attributes presented above.
But what about an understanding and respect for pre-existing practices?
In times of change, what of a new appointee to a leadership role who needs to rely on advice from within the ranks as to current practice? Experience suggests that such an individual can be grossly misled by disingenuous individuals with vested interests. If underpinning information is viewed by the masses as flawed then so too the path chosen will be perceived as misaligned, causing buy-in to suffer.
From my personal experience, I think the most important skills in a charismatic leader are: the art of active listening and the knowledge of mindful task delegation
Leader should differentiate important issues from not important issues. He/she should know, where apply procedural approach, and where individual/project approach.
Project management (particular methodology - PRINCE2, PMI, agile - depends on branch) should be among his/her most important skills.
Some of the most important traits of a leader are tough mindedness, ability to to take bold decisions, a patient listener, ability to carry along employees in decision making, having foresight
Knowing when and how to be inclusive and collaborative are key.
See http://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/ethnic-diversity-gender-national-leaders/ for international examples.
http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/leaders_do_matterbut_when_does_their_gender_matter_too
Nebath I agree with you but want to add the issue of accommodating . The good leader should accommodate divergent opinions and see them as part of the decision making process.
Hi,
You may have a look to this paper:
Aktas N, de Bodt, E, Bollaert, H,Roll R, "CEO narcissim and the takeover process: From private initiation to deal completion", Journal of financial and quantitative Analysis, 2016, 51, p 113 -137.
Best regards.
"
Valuable traits of leadership are: inspirational leadership, commitment, team work, ethics and goal orientation.
It is not only about traits, but also about the combination of the traits. We showed the importance of proper warmth-dominance combination to achieve good results.
Conference Paper Dominance as a moderator in the relationship between leader'...
Communication: While being good at conveying ideas helps, what is even more helpful is knowing what to say when and to whom. A good leader should be able to be honest, sincere and inspiring in his / her communication - in both good situations and bad.
Play Team: A team that works well with you as a leader is like family. Knowing each of their skills and bring out their best, while keeping an eye on the overall goal is essential. To be able to foster trust, respect and ownership within a team is necessary to achieve great things together.
People first: While the goal of the leader is to achieve the larger objective in mind, I always find it more rewarding when I put people first. Ofcourse the larger goal is important and that is what gives us a sense of achievement and success and moments to celebrate. And putting people first means enabling them, growing them so they can blossom and grow as you work togther to achieve the goal.
Knowing history and culture of one origin or country and follows same in organization, we can not prescribe same prescription for any organization
The most valuable trait of a leader is that, not to let down your followers till the last.
To me a great leader create another leader. She or he built long lasting strength of organization. She or he built culture that every one is precious in their position. I used to use the motto "less ME, more WE".
It depends on the context and experience. Look for this article:
Scrutinizing the types of leadership traits that contribute to the success of Six Sigma implementation: An empirical study
DOI: 10.1002/qre.3363
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