8 Qualities All Great Leaders Share

Before you can be a great leader, you must understand what leadership truly means. It’s a person who leads a group of individuals for a common vision, goal or purpose. Great leaders are present in many different industries, niches and places.

In this post, I’ll share with you 8 qualities all great leaders share:

1. Selflessness 

Whether you’re leading a team, business or a project….the leader has to be one of the most selfless individuals. Selfish people don’t thrive as leaders because their needs come before the needs of everyone else. You need to prioritize the goal or vision that everyone is there for while allowing your own needs to take a backseat.

2. Focus 

Life is filled with distractions and many of your partners, team members and classmates may have a tough time focusing. People will get distracted, but your responsibility as a leader requires you to get everyone to focus and re-focus when necessary. You don’t have to lead with an iron fist, but you must have a great balance of kindness and forcefulness to ensure things get done.

3. Confidence 

Great leaders are confident individuals who believe in their own abilities allowing them to lead another group. If you lack confidence, it’s hard to get other people to listen to you. People gravitate towards leaders and they follow leaders having a strong desire to be under their wings. If others respect you, they will allow you to lead them.

4. Open Mindedness

Nobody loves a leader who is strung on his/her ways and refuses to listen to new options. Great leaders encourage their team members to speak their mind and help them find better ways to succeed. A great leader is not one who has the right course of action every time, but rather one who is willing to do whatever it takes to figure out the best plan.

5. Communication 

As a leader, your main role is to communicate and to bring everyone together on the same page. The best leaders are able to do this with ease while poor leaders struggle to do this. If everyone is on the same page and you have a drama-free environment, you’ll be in a great spot to succeed. However, when communication is poor….things begin to crumble quickly.

6. Accountability

As a leader, you are no different than anyone else on the team. Nobody is better than anyone else, it’s an even playing field and these are the best environments to create as a leader. If you make a mistake, you need to own up to it with complete transparency. Leaders need to follow by example. You can say all the right things, but your actions must replicate those words.

7. Decisiveness 

Great leaders are always decisive even when they aren’t sure. It’s always great to get opinions from other people and to keep an open mind, but at some point you have to step up as the leader and make a decision when nobody else can. As a leader, you don’t always have to be right. You just have to be willing to be a decision maker and live with the results.

8. Passionate 

If you aren’t passionate about your job or project that you’re working on, you cannot expect your teammates to do the same. Your passion and enthusiasm has to resonate to everyone else. I always see poor leaders upset when their team members aren’t enthusiastic when they are only there to be there. Great leaders are filled with passion on the projects that they work on.

Conclusion 

In this post, I shared 8 qualities all great leaders share. What are some other qualities great leaders seem to share from your experience?