The Characteristics to Build Great Leadership

Great leadership is inspirational: Inspiration includes visioning, influencing, innovating, motivating, trust, confidence, diplomacy, role modeling etc.

Leadership is about future, future implicates changes and innovation. Leadership is Influence: The leader’s influence is based on the courage to inspire, confidence to assert, wisdom to negotiate, and uniqueness to bridging. More specifically, what are the important characteristics to build great leadership?

Vision & Intuition: Great leaders have a vision, they facilitate the transformation of an organization, and its people, from the organization's current position to a position that best serves the interests of its customers, shareholders, and people. The means of 'facilitating the transition' is, what distinguishes a great leader and a great organization. A great leader is one that can trust his or her instincts and relies on them at a crucial moment. Not that you wouldn't let the facts speak for themselves, however, how many times does the leader simply take in all opinions surrounding them and at the end of the day must do what they believe is right for the situation at hand.

Communication: Even good leaders can sometimes assume too much. If people know and understand your vision they will be more willing and able to follow your lead. Always have the future in mind and develop staff for success both at the personal and organizational levels, and always use the most sustainable approach. It is important to know when you need to manage and when you need to coach and mentor. This is something that needs to be developed in future leadership. Leading and managing by power and control are never sustainable approaches. Keep it professional and purposeful!Ability to motivate and make people go where they have never been before, take the time to engage with your staff at every opportunity. As a leader, you know you must master the communication skills necessary to create change:

-Building rapport

-Motivating and inspiring others

-Providing effective feedback

-Persuasively presenting your ideas or vision

-Reframing current challenges to your team

Reflection: Great leaders always take the time to self-reflect. Dealing with perceived manipulative situations, poor leaders demonstrating poor leadership skills, and just overall frustrations can change how you lead. Taking time to objectively reflect and see if you are meeting your expectations with your approach is a very useful tool to keep you on track with your personal vision, ethics, value, and authenticity:

L-LISTEN....patiently.

E-ENABLE your team- make them champs.

A-ANSWER to the most "weird questions". They may be of great help to someone in the team.

D-DIRECTION-be the navigator and take responsibility for the journey.

E-EMPATHY - being human, and to understand others as if you were in the other person's position.

R-RESPECT -make respect a way of life in the team. We all deserve it

Creativity: Leadership is about change. Creative leadership is essentially anchored on the leader's overall multifaceted resourcefulness. That is, the multidimensional (including introspection) competencies to formulate creative (unconventional) alternatives or solutions to resolve problems, to show versatility and flexibility in response to unpredictable or unanticipated circumstances. Great leaders are pioneers, innovators, and creators of a better context. Creativity becomes significantly important in the age with the advanced technologies because the leaders of the future will not be mere automatons. Creative leadership is the unique combination of leadership behaviors that develops and achieves high-quality results over a sustained period of time and risk tolerance.

Adaptability: Adaptability is to be understood as the ability of a system to adapt itself efficiently and fast to changed circumstances. An adaptive mind is, therefore, an open mind that is able to adjust its thinking processes according to changes in its environment, or a learning mind to absorb all necessary knowledge and abstract it into insight and wisdom. Self-adaptation is faster if made with the full involvement of people in organizational change. In an ever changing world and business/employment field, it's a challenge. Being adaptable to the business, workers, customers, and life is key. Adaptability through openness to personal transformation and evolution. Negotiating win-win outcomes, increasing self-confidence and performance in others, getting yourself and others into action.

Great leadership is inspirational: Inspiration includes visioning, influencing, innovating, motivating, trust, confidence, diplomacy, role modeling etc..It is a leader's job to keep the team/organization moving FORWARD, not BACKWARD.

Posted in: Future of Leadership