Five Leadership Qualities that You Didn’t Know

Leadership is one of the widely discussed topics on this earth. When it comes to leadership, history do not have any dearth for inspiring leaders and from the biographies of such leaders you can learn many rules, styles, pointers and other relevant details for getting inspired and to become one such leader in your life too.


However, there are many instances in your life from which you can learn leadership qualities and majority of times you fail to recognize them and just allow all the information to go as a waste.

Here is a short list 5 great leadership qualities that you didn’t know all these times.

1. Leadership Type is Not One

Leaders are of different types ad you can come across many types of them in your real life. Persons whom you elect through franchise either in your office or in public life are known as formal leaders and your congressman or your senators or the president of local club fall under this category of leaders. Informal leaders are persons who assume the leadership position out of their virtues or being pushed to the leadership position due to their integrity and wisdom.

The village tribesman or in that case even your grandparents are informal leaders of this sort and all these leaders rise to their positions because of their expertise in handling things and their level headed virtues. When it comes to scientists, even Albert Einstein can be considered as a leader in the field of Theoretical Physics and Leonardo da Vinci could be considered as a leader in the field of the Arts.

When it comes to types of leadership, different people categorize leadership differently and we will see how the three great personalities defined leadership, both formal leaders and informal leader, in their own styles:

• According to Lewin, there are three basic leadership styles namely authoritative, participative, and delegative
• As per Likert’s version, the leadership styles are of four types and they are exploitive authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative, and participative
• The popular Goleman differentiated leadership styles into six different categories based on their emotion and they are visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding.

2. Leadership is a Transforming Process.

Though it is widely believed that leaders are born with such innate leadership qualities, but in reality, unless these leaders get themselves exposed to the right opportunities and environments, they are less likely to get developed into a full fledged and successful leaders. So becoming yourself a leader is like learning to ride bicycle meaning that you have to master the art and once you master it the expertise will surface as and when needed similar to your balancing a cycle effortlessly.

You can gain the majority of theoretical knowledge about leadership by getting yourself enrolled in some institution or other management schools and you can also learn many other intricacies from seminars, conferences and other workshops. More than what you learn from these schools and seminars, you present day to day life has got all the crux of leadership qualities and you can utilize this opportunity to get your leadership qualities fine-tuned to a desired level.

Your learning, be it formal or informal, will certainly assist you in gaining many leadership attitudes and insights and such insights will further make you to appreciate the nuances of leadership and help you to seek them for your advantage. Please bear in your mind that you cannot become a leader overnight, and if at all you aspire to become a overnight leader then you need to work at least for 10 years in the right direction. To become a good leader, you should be prepared to face all tribulations of your life and be ready to face any difficult situation and subject yourself to various tests.

3. Be a Leader for Yourself First

You become a best leader only when you apply all your leadership qualities in your life first. You may be aware of a popular adage that goes as - “action speaks louder than words” and according to this you as a leader will be in limelight and people will see how best you applied your thoughts in your own life before accepting your views. People look for credibility in their leaders and unless you put your actions in the right direction and with a proper intention, you can seldom become a leader.

Your behaviour, your action and interaction with your family, friends and colleagues and your personal responsibilities also play a vital role in projecting you as a leader in the midst of public. So develop a habit to be polite, understanding and friendly and soon these qualities will become your nature and character and the general public will start seeing and accepting you as their leader. Just grab a copy of the famous book written by Steven Covey so as to get a better understanding of what you are up to.

4. Leadership Lead to Necessary Sharing

Leadership doesn’t really rely on a single person, but it is a collective responsibility of all in any team. Though a leader is also a member of a group, each and every individual of the group will have responsibilities to fulfill and the formal leader will have additional responsibilities besides his/her responsibility as a member of the group.

Effective leadership is to make every individual to do their part of work effectively and an effective leader will ensure the cohesiveness of the group and lead the team to achieve the set goal. When such being the role of an effective leader, then you, as a leader should have efficient interaction capabilities and create trust among the members of the team. When it comes to trust, mere words cannot suffice, but you should try to respect others and build confidence level, foster it and protect it.

5. The Effect of Situation on Leadership

You may now wonder as to how a dictatorship that failed in United States works better in Singapore. This is because, over and above the beliefs, culture, government and values, the existing situation may also influence the leadership styles exhibited by formal leaders. As there is no fixed rule that only one type of leadership style alone should be used, there is wide scope for use of various leadership styles or a combination of such leadership styles depending upon the situation prevailing in an area.

For example, during emergency situations such as a natural calamity or a war, any decision made will be very crucial and it is a matter of life and death. Further, under such tense situation, the leader may not have time to discuss the matter with his fellow members and the leader has to necessarily take a calculated risk and a well-informed decision so as to save the general public from catastrophe.

When it comes to leadership in an organization, a moderately participative style of leadership will suffice provided the staffs are cooperative, competent and highly motivated. However, a high directive leadership style will suit for organizations that has got less competent and less committed people as its staff.

What you have read may stay only as an abstract knowledge now, but when you plunge into actions you will be able to match or associate all your experiences with this and start learning the nuances involved in any leadership. Get, Set and Go to be a leader.

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