What Makes Great Leaders

Whether you’re trying to get a leadership position, or you’ve just entered one and aren’t sure what to do, there’s nothing wrong with wondering what makes great leaders. 

 

It’s a question that many have asked for strictly practical and strictly academic purposes. Books have been written on the subject, so feel free to do more research, but this article will try to point out just the big ones.

 

Focus

 

Good leaders are focused. That doesn’t mean that they are focused on a single thing so much as that they are focused on networks. To be a good leader, you have to understand yourself, you have to understand the people that you are leading, and you have to understand how the strengths of yourself and your team members can be best used to complete the task at hand.

 

While you may try to focus solely on the problem at hand, this may lead you to miss ques happening all around you. If you are a problem-oriented person, make time to dwell on the problem but also make time to think introspectively about yourself and how you are approaching the problem as well as time to spend talking and working with your team members to make sure that everyone’s strengths are being utilized.

 

Self-Awareness

 

Focusing on yourself is also important because in order to be a great leader you need to know yourself. As mentioned above, knowing your team is important too but as a leader you will serve as a uniting force that directs their strengths towards the goal. This will only work if you know yourself, have confidence in yourself, and move with a consistent direction and purpose.

 

Finding your leadership style can take a lifetime, but hopefully you already have your own personal style figured out. It’s okay if it matures with you – in fact it probably should – but it should be consistent enough that your team can follow your lead without getting dizzy.

 

Communication Skills

 

Being a good leader also requires communication skills. We often think of leaders as being charismatic or effective speakers, and while this is an important part of communication, it is only half of it.

 

Sometimes communication means rallying the troops and encouraging your team to work harder or to think more creatively.

 

Sometimes, however, communication means listening to your team. As a leader, you and the members of your team have one common goal, but you are likely to approach it in very different ways. Staying in touch with your team is an important way to learn about the progress that they are making as well as the obstacles that they face and possible ways to remove them.

 

Consistency

 

Of course, being a leader often means needing to make tough decisions. A recent study, however, suggests that good leaders all make tough decisions very consistently.

 

More specifically, good leaders make decisions that impact others the same way that they make decisions that impact themselves. This suggests skills like empathy – being able to relate to another person’s emotional state – as well as the ability to make decisions based on the good of the project rather than the good of individuals.

 

It also means seeing yourself as a part of the team. As mentioned above, the roles of leaders and other team members can be different. Both, however, should be seen as instruments of achieving the goal. A leadership position isn’t more important than a team position; a leadership position is a team position.

 

Different leaders have drastically different styles. To become a great leader, you shouldn’t have one great leader in mind because you will never be able to be that person. Rather than focusing on role models, focus on yourself and on developing your own strengths.