If you decide to become a real leader, then you will undoubtedly need a lot of work on yourself. After all, the leader has a multiple set of psychological qualities and knowledge for his viability.

Leader (from English. leader) - the first to go ahead of the rest 🙂 - a person who in a certain group of people enjoys recognition, authority and influence, which is defined as managerial activity. The leader makes the most responsible decisions of the group or organization and manages all processes as a whole, while giving direction for further actions.

In this article, we will not talk about, but about to qualities of a leader.

Leader Qualities:

1) Self-confidence

2) Sociability

It is difficult to imagine without this quality of a leader, the ability to establish contacts and quickly find a common language with the team is the most important quality not only in this path.

3) The ability to constantly learn

It's no secret that our world is constantly changing at an ever-increasing rate. It is in connection with this that modern leaders simply need to constantly replenish their knowledge base and innovate in their business. This will greatly increase your competitiveness.

4) Purposefulness

A very important quality that separates a leader from other people. He always knows what he wants and what needs to be done to get it. After all, agree to foolishly lead the crowd when you yourself do not know where.

5) Responsibility

The ability to be responsible for one's words, actions, decisions is an integral quality of a leader. Here you can no longer say “who is to blame?”. You will have to take on the entire burden of possible failures and failures, but share success with everyone.

6) Self-discipline

Ordinary people easily allow themselves all possible weaknesses. But the leader cannot afford to give up and must constantly be collected and ready for action.

7) Ability to communicate and listen to people

The ability to communicate and listen to people is one of the main leadership qualities. This is where leadership begins. You must not only communicate and convince people in understandable languages, but also be able to listen and understand each person as a separate person.

8) Ability to build a team

We all understand that without a team, a leader ceases to be a leader. Therefore, the ability to create a team is one of the key qualities of a leader. It costs a lot to attract and convince people to go under your banner.

9) Perseverance

A leader is a person who never gives up and is constantly active. He searches for answers and solutions until he finds them.

10) Ambition

The leader always strives for high goals and bright results, while doing this consciously without drawing fabulous mountains in his imagination.

Many people want to develop the qualities of a leader. But not everyone understands who a leader is and who he is. In simple terms, distinguished by purposefulness, tirelessness, the ability to motivate other people, serve as an example for them, and lead them to a result. A leader is not only a prestigious status, but also a great responsibility. And since this topic is very interesting, a little more attention should be paid to its consideration.

Becoming a leader

First, let's talk a little about it. Is it possible to become a leader? Yes, if a person initially has an appropriate character, temperament, fire inside and what is called a grip. All of the above can “sleep” in a person for some time, but then it will either awaken itself under the influence of circumstances, or their owner will start the process.

Be that as it may, all leaders go through four stages of development. Briefly, they can be described as follows:

• Your own leader. A person learns to understand himself, to be responsible for his own words and actions, formulates individual motivation, trains discipline, sets goals, achieves them.
• leader in the situation. A person assumes responsibility for a small group/company in certain circumstances. The headman in the university group is one example.
• Leader in the team. A person who is able to lead a large group of people to complex and important goals. For example, the head of a department of a company.
• Team leader. The one who has great potential, inexhaustible confidence, strong fortitude and an ambitious goal, for the achievement of which he gathers a whole team. For example, a businessman organizing his own business.

Being a leader is not easy. But this status brings great results. So what qualities should a leader have?

Ability to work with goals

This needs to be said first. The main quality of a leader is the ability to determine the goal and work with it in the future. He knows exactly the following:

• What strategies can help you achieve results?
• In what direction do you need to move to achieve it.
• How much time and resources will be required to achieve the goal.
• What will be the result.

The leader also knows how to plan, analyze, think constructively and offer good ideas. In addition, he is able to explain everything listed to any member of the team in an accessible and understandable way.

Sociability

This, too, must be attributed to the main qualities of a leader. Sociability refers to the ability to establish contacts and promote mutually enriching, constructive communication. If a person has this quality, then he is considered socially successful.

And for a leader, the ability to communicate effectively with people, colleagues and partners is also the key to success. If he is sociable, then it will not be difficult for him to create a useful connection at the right time, which will help in effectively achieving the goal. In addition, this quality helps to win over people, ask questions correctly, quietly translate the topic in the right direction and quickly receive information of interest.

Ability to inspire and motivate

This is a very important quality. A leader is a person who not only leads people, but the one you want to follow! He must be able to create impulses of action that stimulate both himself and others. Moreover, he must also inspire action, create long-term and sustainable motivation.

The leader knows how to demonstrate an attractive and colorful future and thereby arouse in his followers and wards a desire to quickly plunge into it headlong. To do this, he must:

• Have a well-delivered speech.
• Create a "picture" of the future, vividly describe, but do not embellish.
• To some extent be a psychologist. It is impossible to do without knowing the “points” of your colleagues and wards, which you need to influence for inspiration and motivation.

And of course, the leader must be an example. Energetic, positive, confident and at the same time businesslike calm. So that people, looking at him, know that everything will work out, they will definitely succeed, and even under such leadership.

Humanity

Despite the fact that we are all people, this quality is not characteristic of everyone. But the leader is simply obliged to have it. Who will people follow? Who will they support? Whom will they listen to? Only the fact that those who support them, take care of their interests, treat them humanly, with understanding.

This is a very important personal quality. A leader can be strict and accommodating at the same time. Many are afraid to show understanding and support for fear of losing credibility, but good leaders know when to show one side or the other.

organization

Talking about what qualities a leader should have, one cannot fail to mention organization. It is very important not to waste your time on trifles, to be able to brush aside unnecessary actions, to concentrate on the important. The basis of the actions of a true leader is:

• Self-discipline and discipline.
• A clear order of action.
• A well-thought-out schedule and a strict consequence of it.
• Diligence and punctuality.
• Ability to manage time.
• The ability to concentrate as much as possible on a specific action.

In the process, it manifests itself directly. After all, he not only himself follows all of the above, he also teaches this to his subordinates. By the way, in a business environment, this is called time management.

What is leadership?

This is not quality, but it also deserves attention. Leadership is the process of social influence, through which a person receives support from other people (members of the team, as a rule) to achieve certain goals.

There can be many varieties. Leadership style determines the worldview of a person, his character traits, experience. Sometimes circumstances do. Styles are as follows:

• Autocratic. It is characterized by highly centralized power. All decisions are made by the leader, subordinates only follow orders.
• Democratic. All members of the team are involved in decision making.
• Liberal. The leader transfers his powers to subordinates, which increases their initiative and creativity.
• Narcissistic. The leader does not consider other people's interests. This does not always lead to a bad outcome, but in a team with such authority, people, as a rule, feel uncomfortable because of his arrogance and aggressiveness.
• Toxic. Authority uses leadership in such a way that the team is in a worse position.
• Focus on results. The leader leads the team to the goal, clearly following the plan and keeping in mind the time frame.
• Relationship orientation. The leader tries to improve relations in the team, putting real goals in the background.

Political sphere

It would be nice to briefly consider the topic within the framework of a particular branch of life. For example, what should be the qualities of a political leader? The main ones are:

• Consistent activity and activity. It is important. A politician should be perceived by people as an active and active person. Expressive speeches, impressive decisions, speeches, projects, deeds… all this demonstrates this quality.
• The ability to shape one's behavior and image. A politician must be able to focus on people, capture their requirements and comply with them.
• Ability to think politically. It helps to formulate a social position in certain cases and to determine one's behavior.
• The ability to capture the relationship between events in the life of society and areas.
• Ability to inspire justified trust. No political leader will influence people if they don't trust him.

Also, this list can include the ability to use power and take responsibility, the ability to understand ordinary citizens, as well as the manifestation of humanism and high morality.

Leader signs

I would like to list them in the end. Much has been said above about what qualities characterize a leader. And here is what can be attributed to the signs by which such a person is easy to recognize:

• He does not wait for orders, but acts on his own, and does it reasonably and efficiently, for the good.
• He has courage and a strong character.
• He makes bold decisions.
• He has many like-minded people and advisers.
• He thinks optimistically, but not recklessly.
• One of the best qualities of a leader is that he always knows what he wants.
• He is not afraid to destroy everything in order to build something new.
• The leader does not try to be someone else, he remains himself.
• Such a person does not compete with others, but cooperates.
• He perceives changes and crisis not as a problem, but as an opportunity to start acting actively.
• Obstacles motivate him, not oppress him.
• He always goes to the end. Nothing can make him turn off the path.
• His life is always impressive and delightful.
• Many try to imitate him.
• The leader is not tense. If a problem arises, then he solves it without wasting time on complaints and worries.
• In any sphere of life, it is clear from him that he is a leader. Even if he rests alone.

Having studied even this small list, one can understand that a leader is a strong and strong-willed person, capable of both independently performing actions and feats, and successfully motivating others to do so.

Each candidate to take the place of a leader in the team must have a number of leadership qualities. Exactly leadership skills and define the role of a leader, explain why some become such and are ready to captivate and lead, while others are not accepted in this capacity and do not enjoy authority.

is a set of psychological qualities, skills and abilities to interact with a group that are able to ensure the successful implementation of leadership tasks and functions. It is impossible to single out one or two qualities that characterize a leader. There are many more. On the other hand, one can list qualities for quite a long time and interpret them as leadership qualities. And the more the list becomes, the less practical use it has, it's easier to get confused.

This article will present the main leadership qualities, the development of which can make a real leader out of any person.

Personal qualities of a leader

KNOWING YOURSELF, YOUR FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS

To know yourself, to feel what is happening inside yourself, to be able to listen to your emotions and feelings, to your intuition, to clearly and clearly imagine what you want is an integral quality of a leader. It helps to navigate life and understand other people, it helps not to miss your chance by recognizing the right opportunity. A real leader cannot be knocked off the intended path; it is difficult to manipulate him, because he knows exactly what he wants.

RISK READINESS

This is one of the leadership qualities that is inherent in many modern leaders. For example, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Corporation, which today manages more than 300 different companies around the world, is the image of a leader who is always ready to take risks. Often he risked everything, both in business and in ordinary life (take a balloon trip around the world, for example).

The reason why true leaders are not afraid to take risks and change your life, is the understanding that sometimes you have to pay a considerable price for not showing initiative. Therefore, people who seek to anticipate events are always ready to take risks.

Today there are many business owners, managers who strive to build a meaningful "business" without taking risks, but by working in the style of "quietly you go - you will continue." As John Kennedy said: There are costs and risks to any action plan, but they are far less than the long-term costs and risks of comfortable inaction.».

SELF-CONFIDENCE

High and adequate level of self-esteem a leader, together with self-confidence, help him take risks when necessary, increase courage and decisiveness in critical situations. Confidence in one's own abilities allows the leader to expand the limits of his abilities and gain new life experience. This theory was substantiated in 1981 by B. Bass, who analyzed the leading research in the field of leadership qualities and confirmed that the feeling self-confidence, the leader is an order of magnitude higher than that of those who follow him.

RELIABILITY, REGULATION AND CONSISTENCY

The leader is the bearer of the norms and values ​​of the association of people, therefore his worldview, his actions must be consistent with the universal norms of morality - honesty, justice, reliability, responsibility and consistency in actions and deeds.

ACTIVE LIFE POSITION

For adequate orientation in the situation, the leader must have an active life position. It's necessary leadership quality, which allows the leader to always be in the thick of things, learn about everything firsthand and be more informed.

INITIATIVE AND ABILITY TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF

Enterprising and active people do not wait until someone else makes them want to work. They know that only they have the responsibility to convince themselves to leave the familiar comfort zone. And they make self-motivation a regular practice. Here is what Theodore Roosevelt said, one of the enterprising and greatest people of the 20th century, endowed with a mass of leadership qualities: “ There is nothing outstanding and brilliant in the biography, except that I really did what, in my opinion, needed to be done ... And when I had an unequivocal opinion about the need to do something, I acted».

Managerial and organizational leadership qualities

ABILITY TO BUILD A TEAM

The ability to attract people ideas and thoughts, ideals, skill convince a person) and create a team of followers and like-minded people - a quality that determines the success of an individual in the role of a leader. Setting common goals and values ​​and controlling the adherence of followers to these goals are among the main leadership qualities.

ABILITY TO ORGANIZE A TEAM FOR SOLVING THE TASKS

This is one of the fundamental organizational qualities of a leader. It consists of the ability to distribute responsibilities between team members, the ability to inspire and motivate a group to perform tasks and functions, coordinate work, etc.

VISION PERSPECTIVE

The person who leads the group is simply obliged to know where to go. Observation, vision of the prospects for the activities of your group, the prospects, the team that follows it is one of the most important organizational qualities of a leader.

Leaders have no right to get so caught up in the minutiae and details that they lose sight of something that is truly important. The writer Alfred Montaper wrote: Most people see obstacles in front of them, only a few see goals, history marks the successes of the latter, while for the former, oblivion becomes a reward».

FLEXIBILITY OF BEHAVIOR AND SENSITIVITY TO THE SITUATION

Leaders are often participants in complex processes, they are in the "arena", where a large number of all kinds of forces operate, which are sometimes beyond the boundaries of his knowledge and control. Therefore, the organizational leader must feel the situation, be able to quickly navigate it and make the only right decision.

READINESS TO SUPPORT IN DIFFICULT MINUTES

The unwillingness of the leader to provide support to his like-minded and follower in the case when it is very necessary and he is able to provide it, in most cases, deprives him of his followers and the status of a leader.

People respect such a leader who never forgets their interests. If you focus on what you can give to your followers, rather than what you can get from them, they will respect and love you, and this will make your relationship lasting and stronger.

As one of the leaders of General Motors said: “ The fields of various industries are littered with the bones of enterprises whose leadership qualities were thoroughly saturated with rot and moral decay, where they firmly believed that one should only take instead of giving ... where they did not understand that the only asset of the company that cannot be quickly replacement, it's her people».

Remember! The ability to thank and encourage the quality that helps the leader to successfully perform organizational and managerial functions.

Psychological and socialleadership skills

COMMUNICABILITY

Important leader quality is an sociability The ability to quickly establish contacts with people and feel confident in a team. It is difficult to imagine a leader of a person who experiences shyness when communicating.

JUSTICE

The leader coordinates relationships in the team, therefore, in assessing the actions and actions of other people, he must be fair, objective and unbiased.

ABILITY TO REPRESENT AND DEFEND THE INTERESTS OF THE TEAM

The leader represents common interests, therefore the ability to defend them in external instances and take full responsibility for corporate activities is an important quality of a leader.

ABILITY TO CREATE CONDITIONS FOR SELF-REALIZATION OF YOUR FOLLOWERS

This leadership quality is the basis for the formation of followers' trust in the leader and readiness to follow him.

If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.

One of the main topics for research by modern sciences related to social psychology is leadership and personality. According to scientists, the formation of leadership is directly related to the search for certain personality traits that allow them to have an advantage due to their psychological and physical characteristics. The leader has a major role in organizing the activities of the group to which he belongs, and also forms and regulates the interpersonal relations of its members.

Characteristic

What is a leader? There are many definitions from which we can conclude: a leader is a person who leads others, has authority and knows how to organize and distribute the activities of the group. The definition of leadership also means that an individual has certain abilities that help him lead others. These abilities are formed from the psychological qualities of a person, which are a unity of knowledge, values, skills, and norms of behavior. The leader always sees the big picture and knows how to achieve the goal, where to go. Even under adverse circumstances, he does not give up and purposefully moves forward. He is always disciplined, able to think analytically and helps others achieve the desired result.

Key qualities

Many researchers in the field of sociology and psychology argue whether leadership qualities can be innate, or whether they need to be developed. But there are personal and psychological qualities of a person that distinguish them from other people. These are strong and strong-willed individuals, open to criticism and closed from troubles, they have such character traits as:

• control over emotions and behavior;
• positive attitude;
• readiness for change;
• firmly believe in luck;
• expression of thoughts is short and clear;
• do not give up in the face of difficulties.

The listed properties of the character of a strong-willed person are not all the qualities inherent in a leader. There are many others that characterize a strong personality. These include.

Calmness, honesty, purposefulness, reliability

An honest and purposeful leader is believed and followed, because he is not afraid of difficulties and firmly pursues his goal. Such a person is reliable and will never let his followers down, bringing the matter to the end.

openness

A good leader knows how to listen and take into account the ideas proposed by others, even if they do not correspond to his plans. The ability to consider an alternative solution to one's own is a positive skill for a leader. Openness in the relationship between him and his followers means trust and respect in the team.

Creativity

It often happens that the ordinary way of thinking does not help to solve the problem. Then it is necessary to expand the boundaries of consciousness and think differently, apply a different approach to business. The leader is usually a creative person who has no difficulty in such matters. He does not despair, but offers: “What if?”. The leader's extended mindset encourages followers to adopt a similar problem-solving approach.

Confidence and responsibility

To achieve the set goals, the leader must be assertive, and also responsible for justifying the expectations of the wards, so he gathers all the strength of the team to solve the problem and lead to the final result. Such assertiveness is often perceived by "weaker" people as aggressiveness. But these concepts should be distinguished.

Sense of humor

This is a personal and important quality of a “strong” person, helping to relieve boredom, defuse a tense situation in a team, and also contributes to the development of a corporate spirit. Humor is a kind of power that provides control over the members of the group.

Enthusiasm

A person who is devoted to his work deserves the trust of his followers. With the help of the enthusiasm shown, the leader becomes an inspirer and motivator. Despite the difference in responsibilities, the leader helps the others on an equal basis with them and is not afraid to plunge into “dirty work”.

Analytical thinking

The leader always sees the big picture of the situation, but in order to study it in detail, he can “break” it into separate parts. So, without losing sight of the ultimate goal, he sets a few small ones, which accelerates progress in this direction. These are the main personal and psychological qualities of a leader. They manifest themselves both in everyday life and at work. Also, the qualities of such a person include:

• perseverance and determination;
• the ability to quickly determine goals and objectives and communicate them to subordinates;
• the ability to motivate and inspire employees;
• the ability to remain calm in all situations;
• quick and broad thinking;
• the ability to quickly focus not on difficulties, but on achieving the goal;
• take risks, but justified;
• it is necessary to clearly understand what can be abandoned and what cannot;
• listen to others and discuss their ideas;
• the ability to accelerate movement towards the goal or stop dangerous processes in time.

It can be concluded that leadership and a strong, strong-willed personality are inseparable concepts. A leader must have many different character traits that help him achieve success in any field. But the possession of them, it does not mean to be the main and lead the society. You need to learn how to display them correctly.

Demonstration of qualities

• proud posture shows confidence;
• a calm and firm look directed directly into the opponent's eyes indicates a strong personality;
• appropriate and infrequent smile;
• respectful and accommodating manners;
• the image should make a good impression.

When talking, you should believe in your own rightness and demonstrate to the interlocutor devotion to the chosen path. The personality that characterizes the leader has self-confidence and strong will, which help in overcoming problems and difficulties. But what if these qualities are not observed? Can they be developed? The study of this issue is relevant to this day. Many researchers believe that it is realistic to develop leadership qualities, one has only to work long and hard on oneself.

Formation of the necessary qualities

The development of the personality of a leader must begin from childhood, but if the moment has already been missed, you should not be upset, because it is never too late to engage in self-development. There are many different leadership development trainings, the goal of which is to create a clear plan for self-development, consisting of specific steps.

First you need to divide your plan into several sections for the gradual development of a person as a leader:

• short-term goals achieved in the near future;
• mid-term goals to be achieved within a few months;
• long-term goals that require a year of self-improvement.

They say that practice is more important than theory, which is fundamentally wrong. Without a theoretical foundation, it will not be possible to become a leader, but only the ability to copy the words and actions of other people with more outstanding abilities will be formed. To succeed in this field, you must learn to observe and analyze their activities and behavior, creatively applying the experience gained to solve your own problems.

To develop leadership skills at the beginning of a purposeful journey, leadership specialist D. Adair came up with an exercise that will help you achieve success. It consists in a list of key goals, of which you need to highlight some for yourself and follow them:

• Complete several self-improvement trainings per year.
• Conversation with recognized leaders to understand the ideas of leadership.
• Conversation with employees about what they value a leader for. Answers should be written down and considered.
• During the year, read several self-development manuals and determine 5 practical steps based on it.
• Find out accurate information about the company's opinion about yourself, your potential in it.
• If there is no opportunity for leadership development at work, you need to change it.
• Choose a long course of study to expand knowledge in a particular area.

This exercise is very effective if you are completely immersed in self-improvement. When creating a plan, it is necessary to take into account the development of leadership qualities in oneself. This is a very laborious work, but as a result, success will not be long in coming. Psychologists, having studied the biographies of the most famous personalities, have identified 10 qualities necessary for success in the field of self-development.

Moving towards results

The leader always sees his goal, knows where to move and what to do to achieve it. In order to learn this, you can read the stories of successful people, books on self-development and motivation.

Making decisions

A person with a strong, strong-willed character is afraid to make difficult decisions. To develop decision-making skills, it is necessary to learn how to accept them in areas where refusal will not be a serious mistake. It needs to be analyzed and not stopped there.

Risk

A true leader acts despite the lack of guarantees of a positive result. To learn how to take risks, you need to analyze the problem and make several options for solving it, assigning a scale for each from 1 to 5. Then you need to think about whether everything will go as planned and then take appropriate measures. Do not despair if you lose. By making mistakes and understanding them, leaders "grow".

people motivation

The leader knows how to clearly explain his thoughts and goals to others, inspires confidence and desire for heights that they could not even think of before. Under his leadership, the other members of the group are trying to improve their personal and professional qualities. How to motivate others: you need to study the needs of all members of the group that encourage active action. Each of them must understand the importance of their work in the team.

Creation of a team

The leader's team consists of strong and productive individuals, where there is a corporate spirit and mutual understanding. To create your own team, you need to focus on the opinions of others during discussions, on their best qualities.

self-knowledge

Good leaders strive for excellence, recognizing flaws and strengths. They are open to criticism and willingly change their qualities if necessary. To expand knowledge, you need to analyze your own actions and consequences. You can ask the opinion of others about what changes are needed to improve leadership qualities. An excellent experience for self-discovery would be keeping a diary with the most important events. With it, you can track the progress in improving skills.

Personal integrity

Integrity helps you not to deviate from your principles, even if the other way is easier and more profitable. A person with such a character trait is considered by everyone to be reliable and an example to follow. An active search for communication with friends and colleagues will allow you to soberly assess the integrity, comparing your ideas about the goal and responsibility with their opinion.

Self improvement

To do this, you must often communicate with people to exchange new ideas, analyze the actions and words of both your own and experienced strong personalities, read literature on the topic of leadership.

Productive communication

Good leaders can easily present their thoughts, goals, and ideas in a way that will be followed by followers. To learn this, you need to practice active listening, be able to see the non-verbal messages of the body, convey the most relevant information and ask for it to be repeated, it is important to learn to read between the lines in a conversation.

Active Mutual Aid

Encouraging even small successes of each of the team allows them to reveal their own potential, you can entrust some of their responsibilities. With the development of these qualities, success in various areas of life will not keep you waiting, the main thing is patience and perseverance, as well as a great desire to change yourself for the better.

The qualities of a leader are charisma, competence, responsibility, the ability to be flexible, and this is not a complete list of those traits that are important to develop in yourself if you have great ambitions and a desire to become a productive, successful creator of life or the captain of an organization and even your own business.

What qualities should a leader have?

Leadership qualities are a set of skills, abilities, character traits that lead to success, recognition and high performance results. The development of qualities begins with taking responsibility for your life and what happens in it. The list of qualities that a leader should possess is extensive, but each person is an individual and each has its own set of traits and characteristics. Leading him to success.

Leadership qualities of a leader

What qualities should a leader have? This should be a person with a broad outlook and non-standard thinking, able to look at the current situation from different angles. To see those methods that have become obsolete and do not work and abandon them without fear of stepping into a new, promising, albeit unfamiliar. The main qualities of a leader and leader:

• responsibility;
• attunement with other people and the ability to build effective relationships;
• equilibrium;
• ability to lead;
• control over your emotions;
• clear construction of plans and tasks;
• teamwork skills.

Leadership personality traits

The main qualities of a leader are acquired skills that are constantly being improved:

• intellectual abilities;
• flexibility of thinking;
• creativity;
• desire for self-knowledge;
• constant self-improvement and the desire to learn new things, learn, grow;
• honesty with oneself;
• determination and courage to explore the unknown;
• performance;
• ambition.

Leadership Theory

Leadership qualities of a person - Ralph Stogdill in 1948 began to closely study and structure the previously collected information by the first researchers of the qualities possessed by famous personalities - this is how the theory of leadership qualities was born. In the mid 1980s. American consultant Warren Bennis continued his research and, when interacting with 90 successful individuals, identified 4 groups of leadership qualities:

• attention management;
• value management;
• self-management;
• trust management.

Positive and negative qualities of a leader

Each phenomenon or phenomenon has positive and negative aspects, especially when there is an imbalance or imbalance of some quality - leadership is no exception. Positive qualities of a leader:

• charisma;
• firmness and fortitude;
• dedication to the cause;
• high competence;
• communication;
• goal focus;
• Believe in yourself;
• insight;
• ability to count steps;
• passion;
• the ability to listen and hear;
• self-discipline;
• responsibility.

Negative qualities of a leader:

• unscrupulousness;
• "megalomania";
• "walking on the heads" to achieve success does not shy away from "dirty" ways;
• arrogance or dominance over others;
• workaholism;
• rigidity.

Methods for determining leadership qualities

The identification of leadership qualities through tests and techniques helps to see the makings of a leader and the valuable qualities of a leader. Such techniques are used by psychologists in various organizations. Leadership tests and proven ones:

• « Leadership self-assessment methodology"- A.N. Lutoshkin;
• « Leadership Ability"- R.S. Nemov;
• « Diagnostics of leadership abilities» - E. Krushelnikov, E. Zharikov;
• « Leader potential"- M. Ignatskaya;
• « Leadership style diagnostics”- L. V. Rumyantseva, based on a study of leadership styles by American psychologists K. Levin and P. Leppit.

How to develop leadership qualities?

Leadership development is a gradual process consisting of a series of small steps. Everything needs a measure, otherwise there is a “drain” of achievements and a feeling of guilt and aggression towards oneself. Make a plan for the week, take as a basis the actions that will be performed every day. For example, practicing one skill with 2-3 exercises, reading a motivational book, keeping and analyzing a diary. Move on to working out the next one when mastering has taken place and there is confidence to move on.

Leadership Development Exercises

The professional qualities of a leader are cultivated on the basis of personal qualities, developing oneself as a person, a person tries different niches, finds his own and directs all the energy of personal potential to gain deeper experience in the chosen business. The following simple exercises can help with this, which should be performed as often as possible to achieve progress:

1. Exercise "Jump into the unknown." Gaining experience in unfamiliar activities, whether it's learning to dance, public speaking, skydiving - this develops emotional intelligence and contributes to broadening one's horizons, breaking stereotyped thinking.
2. Exercise "List of beliefs that prevent you from realizing your plan." What is the current goal? For example, “I want to become a leading manager of the organization” write it down in a notebook. Considerations why this is unattainable - to prescribe everything, from the most abstract to the real, until all the arguments run out. The deed is done and the leaf must be solemnly burned.
3. Exercise "The ability to say - no!". The first part of the exercise can be helped by friends or relatives who ask for a favor, such as borrowing a large sum and the task of saying no without guilt or remorse. Practice until you get it right. The second part of the exercise is to learn to defend your rights and focus on fulfilling all the obligations to yourself and others, which you must first announce to friends and acquaintances for self-motivation.

Leadership Development Training

Leadership training is one of the most popular training topics today. Such well-known speakers as Radislav Gandapas, Nick Vujicic, Robin Sharma, Brian Tracy motivate people around the world to take responsibility for their lives and become the creator of the reality that they have drawn for themselves. If there is a feeling inside that you deserve more, but there is no understanding of how, it is important to start with small steps, read a book about success, watch a video, attend a leadership development training in your city, and this will be the beginning of a personal leadership journey.

Leadership Development Books

The psychological qualities of a leader can and should be developed, and it is important to know that great leaders are the most reading people in the world. Reading literature written by famous successful people motivates and inspires you to achieve your goals. The path full of obstacles, disappointments, doing over and over again gives a complete picture of the fact that everything in this life is possible, and the impossible just needs a little more effort and time.

Books that help the development of leadership qualities:

1. « Leader without a title» R. Sharma. The qualities of a great leader will develop if you first become a great person - so the author claims. The book will be useful for both novice entrepreneurs and those who embarked on the path of self-knowledge.
2. « How to become leaders» W. Bennis. A well-known leadership coach talks about the lack of people in the modern world who truly have developed leadership qualities. Leaders are definitely not born, but they are made by honing their strengths and getting rid of stereotyped thinking.
3. « The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership» J. Maxwell. Vivid examples, principles, and if you follow the laws written in the book, leadership is guaranteed. The author claims that even the most weak-willed person, after reading this book, will be inspired to change his life.
4. « Why should people follow you? A book about what it means to be a true leader» R. Goffey, G. Jones. Qualities of a universal leader? They do not exist, but there is an individuality, by developing which one can become a unique leader in the field that a person has chosen for himself. For 5 years, the authors of the book have been collecting material by interviewing successful people - they are all different and everyone has found their own path to leadership and success.
5. « Leader Charisma» R. Gandapas. The book is about how to develop charisma - a quality without which it is difficult to become a successful and noticeable leader.