The 14 Most Important Leadership Traits

There are many qualities that promote effective leadership. When I was in the Marine Corps several years ago, we had an acronym for leadership traits that was deeply embedded (brainwashed) in our soft youthful minds. I use the the term brainwash endearingly because the truth is that it was some of best training and most effective learning that Ive ever encountered in my life. The acronym was JJDIDTIEBUCKLE or JJ did tie buckle. It covers the following fourteen leadership traits and they are true and effective whether you are a marine, a choir teacher or anything in between. JUSTICE Justice means being fair. Treat others equally. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and so forth. JUDGMENT Judgment is the ability to effectively assess the situation. You must be able to accurately understand the implications of the situation you are in so that you can make good decisions. Judgment is also known as common sense. DEPENDABILITY Dependability is nearly self explanatory. People must be able to depend on you to provide support, accurate information, guidance and motivation. People must be able to trust in your honesty as well as your competence. INITIATIVE Initiative is your tendency to approach your responsibilities in a proactive manner. A leader with initiative will not wait for direction before taking action. If you see something that needs to be done, do it. DECISIVENESS Decisiveness is the ability to make solid decisions quickly. With sound judgment, you will have enough information and with confidence in your information, you can make the decision now without hemming and hawing about. TACT Tact is a skill that enables you to communicate with people in a direct and effective manner without spurring conflict. This goes back to people skills. You need to be able to give direction without making people angry. Tact will help you inspire confidence in your leadership abilities and gain trust and loyalty. INTEGRITY Integrity is essentially honesty, which is crucial to being able to lead people effectively. Without honesty, there is no trust. Without trust, others will not truly follow you and support youre motives or efforts. ENTHUSIASM Enthusiasm deals directly with your ability to motivate. It is about maintaining and putting forth a positive attitude. Enthusiasm expects success and drives us closer to achieving it. It fosters optimism and inspires others to follow your lead. BEARING Bearing is a trait that is often not discussed in civilian organizations but is none the less critical for good leadership. Bearing is the way you conduct and control yourself. It is your appearance, your posture and your manner that reflects self confidence and self control. Stand straight and

exude a demeanor of leadership and authority. Bearing lets people know that you take your role seriously. Do not slouch about or goof off. These things do not inspire confidence in others that you can lead them. UNSELFISHNESS Unselfishness is another that is self explanatory. A good leader is looking out for the good of the team. A leader is not selfishly seeking his or her own best interest. Leaders have no ulterior motives. COURAGE Courage is the trait that is paramount in all good leadership. You must first have the courage to lead, to expect success, to accept responsibility and to face challenge. Leaders do not fear failure, they embrace it and learn from it in order to minimize its impact and the likelihood that it will occur again. Look fear in the eye and grin. Courage is the chariot that carries us to victory. KNOWLEDGE Knowledge is another important component of good leadership. You must have the experience, training and information necessary to see the operation to a successful end. Without knowledge, we are merely guessing our way through life. Without knowledge, there can be no judgment or sound decision making. LOYALTY Loyalty involves being devoted to the task or the goals of the organization that you are a part of. It means that you make the goals of the team your own. The loyal leader stands behind his people and supports them. He truly believes in what he is doing. Loyalty in leadership promotes a loyal following. ENDURANCE Endurance what keeps us going when the going gets tough. Endurance encompasses our dedication and tenacity to see the job through to completion regardless of obstacles or challenges along the way. It embodies both our mental and physical stamina as well as our will power. JJ Did Tie Buckle. To this day, I still believe in this acronym. I uphold that these 14 leadership concepts truly define the characteristics of good leadership. As a leader, carry these ideas with you wherever you go. Commit them to memory and put them to action. People will notice and your leadership skill will improve tremendously. You will be well on your way to being the best leader you can be.

Management and leadership are not always the same thing but in todays society and business environments, they should be. In the military, service member are subjected to rigorous mental and practical leadership techniques in their training from day one. As a result, the respect of peers and effectiveness of authority come to depend heavily on ones true leadership abilities. Anyone can give orders but to truly and effectively lead in this environment requires skill because everyone knows what to look for. Environments like this breed strong leadership skill in high quantity. In the corporate world, often we find that this is not the case. For some reason, we have been less successful in promoting true leadership skills among business leaders. While there are exceptions to every rule, the norm in civilian leadership scenarios leaves a lot to be desired. This can be seen in the unfortunate way that leadership and management have endured a separation so to speak. Many managers focus on tasks and workload goals alone rather than the people themselves. Managers are managing tasks instead of leading people. While we understand that this is not an optimal scenario, often the stress and pressure from above causes managers to misplace their focus. In short, managers need to be leaders first and administrators second. Anyone can plan and organize tasks but it takes strong leadership skill to promote efficiency and cohesion in a team. When we do not take steps to ensure that management and leadership are deeply intertwined, the result is two different groups with different skill sets and focus. In essence, the manager will organize and oversee task-oriented operations while the leaders will take on the role of motivating and inspiring people. Managers are often replaceable figureheads with cookie cutter skills whereas leaders are valuable, original innovators who are in high demand. Managers are reactionary and work to maintain current efforts and progress where leaders foster proactive people develop new direction and set large scope goals. The manager studies timelines and workloads. The leader leads people. Members of management use control tactics such as stress to accomplish tasks and real leaders would rather develop trust and create relationships that motivate and naturally produce positive results. Managers follow paths. Leaders make new paths. In todays workforce, all of these actions are necessary. This is why managers need to become the leaders. To effectively operate in a management capacity, one will need all of the above skills integrated into their approach. The separation may stem from an earlier primarily industrial society where a large bulk of the driving workforce was comprised by low skilled or physically oriented work. In those situations, managers could effectively operate without vision or with less actual leadership skill. Todays society is different. In the information age, people are more aware of their roles, skills and value to a company. They demand leadership. A much larger portion of the workforce is highly skilled, intelligent and well aware of their benefit to an organization. He or she has many more options. Without effective communication, motivation and respect, todays workers are in large part more difficult to lead. It is not uncommon for a skilled employee to understand his role and functions with much more depth than his manager who must focus on a bigger picture. Micromanagement and simple control would be far less effective because the manager does not understand the employees work as well as the employee does. Now the manager must rely on the skills of others, which he himself does not possess. A mutual respect and solid relationship is needed to promote efficiency and foster positive results. Take the time and make the effort to combine management with strong leadership and your organization will have a much better chance at success. Only when our managers become strong leaders will we go the extra mile and make the goals of the organization our own. The difference

between a forced workforce doing what they have to do and a motivated workforce that does what they can do is staggering.

One of the most important contributions psychology has made to the field of business has been in determining the key traits of acknowledged leaders. Psychological tests have been used to determine what characteristics are most commonly noted among successful leaders. This list of characteristics can be used for developmental purposes to help managers gain insight and develop their leadership skills.
Ads by Google

6 Zones of Leadership
Learn the 6 Zones of Effective Leadership. From AchieveGlobal AchieveGlobal.com/whitepaper

The increasing rate of change in the business environment is a major factor in this emphasis on leadership. Whereas in the past, managers were expected to maintain the status quo in order to move ahead, new forces in the marketplace have made it necessary to expand this narrow focus. The new leaders of tomorrow are visionary. They are both learners and teachers. Not only do they foresee paradigm changes in society, but they also have a strong sense of ethics and work to build integrity in their organizations. Raymond Cattell, a pioneer in the field of personality assessment, developed the Leadership Potential equation in 1954. This equation, which was based on a study of military leaders, is used today to determine the traits which characterize an effective leader. The traits of an effective leader include the following:

Emotional stability. Good leaders must be able to tolerate frustration and stress. Overall, they must be well-adjusted and have the psychological maturity to deal with anything they are required to face. Dominance. Leaders are often times competitive and decisive and usually enjoy overcoming obstacles. Overall, they are assertive in their thinking style as well as their attitude in dealing with others.

Enthusiasm. Leaders are usually seen as active, expressive, and energetic. They are often very optimistic and open to change. Overall, they are generally quick and alert and tend to be uninhibited. Conscientiousness. Leaders are often dominated by a sense of duty and tend to be very exacting in character. They usually have a very high standard of excellence and an inward desire to do one's best. They also have a need for order and tend to be very self-disciplined. Social boldness. Leaders tend to be spontaneous risk-takers. They are usually socially aggressive and generally thick-skinned. Overall, they are responsive to others and tend to be high in emotional stamina. Tough-mindedness. Good leaders are practical, logical, and to-the-point. They tend to be low in sentimental attachments and comfortable with criticism. They are usually insensitive to hardship and overall, are very poised. Self-assurance. Self-confidence and resiliency are common traits among leaders. They tend to be free of guilt and have little or no need for approval. They are generally secure and free from guilt and are usually unaffected by prior mistakes or failures. Compulsiveness. Leaders were found to be controlled and very precise in their social interactions. Overall, they were very protective of their integrity and reputation and consequently tended to be socially aware and careful, abundant in foresight, and very careful when making decisions or determining specific actions.

Beyond these basic traits, leaders of today must also possess traits which will help them motivate others and lead them in new directions. Leaders of the future must be able to envision the future and convince others that their vision is worth following. To do this, they must have the following personality traits:

High energy. Long hours and some travel are usually a prerequisite for leadership positions, especially as your company grows. Remaining alert and staying focused are two of the greatest obstacles you will have to face as a leader. Intuitiveness. Rapid changes in the world today combined with information overload result in an inability to "know" everything. In other words, reasoning and logic will not get you through all situations. In fact, more and more leaders are learning to the value of using their intuition and trusting their own instincts when making decisions.

Maturity. To be a good leader, personal power and recognition must be secondary to the development of your employees. In other words, maturity is based on recognizing that more can be accomplished by empowering others than can be by ruling others. Team orientation. Business leaders today put a strong emphasis on team work. Instead of promoting an adult/child relationship with their employees, leaders create an adult/adult relationship which fosters team cohesiveness. Empathy. Being able to put yourself in the other person's shoes is a key trait of leaders. Without empathy, you can't build trust. And without trust, you will never be able to get the best effort from your employees. Charisma. People usually perceive leaders as larger than life. Charisma plays a large part in this perception. Leaders who have charisma are able to arouse strong emotions in their employees by defining a vision which unites and captivates them. Using this vision, leaders motivate employees to reach toward a future goal by tying the goal to substantial personal rewards and values.

Personal traits play a major role in determining who will and who will not be comfortable leading others. However, it is important to remember that people are forever learning and changing. Leaders are rarely (if ever) born. Circumstances and persistence are major components in the developmental process of any leader. If your goal is to become a leader, work on developing those areas from the list above that you are weak in. For instance, if you have all of the basic traits, but do not consider yourself very much of a people person, take classes or read books on empathy. Get feedback from others on how they see you and what they think you can do to develop those traits. There are many leadership training programs around. Contact your local business school to find one near you.

Rensis Likert and his associates studied the patterns and styles of managers for three decades at the University of Michigan, USA, and identified a four-fold model of management systems. The model was developed on the basis of a questionnaire administered to managers in over 200 organizations and research into the performance characteristics of different types of organizations. The four systems of management system or the four leadership styles identified by Likert are:

System 1 - Exploitative Authoritative: Responsibility lies in the hands of the people at the upper echelons of the hierarchy. The superior has no trust and confidence in subordinates. The decisions are imposed on subordinates and they do not feel free at all to discuss things about the

job with their superior. The teamwork or communication is very little and the motivation is based on threats.

System 2 - Benevolent Authoritative: The responsibility lies at the managerial levels but not at the lower levels of the organizational hierarchy. The superior has condescending confidence and trust in subordinates (master-servant relationship). Here again, the subordinates do not feel free to discuss things about the job with their superior. The teamwork or communication is very little and motivation is based on a system of rewards. System 3 - Consultative: Responsibility is spread widely through the organizational hierarchy. The superior has substantial but not complete confidence in subordinates. Some amount of discussion about job related things takes place between the superior and subordinates. There is a fair amount of teamwork, and communication takes place vertically and horizontally. The motivation is based on rewards and involvement in the job. System 4 - Participative: Responsibility for achieving the organizational goals is widespread throughout the organizational hierarchy. There is a high level of confidence that the superior has in his subordinates. There is a high level of teamwork, communication, and participation. The nature of these four management systems has been described by Likert through a profile of organizational characteristics. In this profile, the four management systems have been compared with one another on the basis of certain organizational variables which are: Leadership processes Motivational forces Communication process Interaction-influence process Decision-making process Goal-setting or ordering Control processes
On the basis of this profile, Likert administered a questionnaire to several employees belonging to different organizations and from different managerial positions (both line and staff). His studies confirmed that the departments or units employing management practices within Systems 1 and 2 were the lease productive, and the departments or units employing management practices within Systems 3 and 4 were the most productive.

Advantages
With the help of the profile developed by Likert, it became possible to quantify the results of the work done in the field of group dynamics. Likert theory also facilitated the measurement of the soft areas of management, such as trust and communication.

Conclusion
According to Rensis Likert, the nearer the behavioral characteristics of an organization approach System 4 (Participative), the more likely this will lead to long-term improvementin staff turnover and high productivity, low scrap, low costs, and high earnings.if an organization wants to achieve optimum effectiveness, then the ideal system

Management Systems In the 1960s Likert outlined four systems of management to describe the relationship, involvement, and roles of managers and subordinates in industrial settings. He based the systems on studies of highly productive supervisors and their team members of an American Insurance Company. Later, he and Jane G. Likert revised the systems to apply to educational settings. They initially intended to spell out the roles of principals, students, and teachers; eventually others such as superintendents, administrators, and parents were included (Hall, 1972). (The following descriptions are from learnmanagement2.com) Exploitive authoritative system (I) In this type of management system the job of employees/subordinates is to abide by the decisions made by managers and others with a higher status in the organisation. The subordinates do not participate in the decision making. The organisation's sole concern is completion of work. Fear and threats may be used to insure completion. No teamwork is involved. Benevolent authoritative system (II) Just as in an exploitive authoritative system, decisions are made at the top of the organisation. However, employees are motivated through rewards rather than fear and threats. Information may flow from subordinates to managers, but it is restricted to what management want to hear. Consultative system (III) In this type of management system, subordinates are motivated by rewards and a degree of involvement in the decision-making process. Management will constructively use subordinates' ideas and opinions. However, involvement is incomplete, and major decisions are still made by senior management. More information flows from

subordinates to management, although it is incomplete and euphemistic. Participative (group) system (IV) Management have complete confidence in their subordinates/employees. Communication is free, and subordinates are fully involved in decision making. Subordinates comfortably express opinions and engage in teamwork. Teams are linked together by common members. Likert calls people in more than one group linking pins. Employees throughout the organisation feel responsible for achieving the organisations objectives. This responsibility is motivational, especially as subordinates are offered economic rewards for achieving organisational goals, which they have participated in setting. "The four systems provide the starting place for a theory of management in which the variable included in the systems are conceptualized as casual variables which through their effect on intervening organization variables [loyalties, attitudes, motivations,etc.] affect the end-result variables of organizational achievement, as measured by such things as productivity, cost and earnings," (Brewer, 1968). System IV is considered to be the most productive and ideal in work settings. When combined with good management and achievable goals, this system has been shown to result in more loyalty, better production, higher motivation, and more profit than the other systems (Effrat, 1968).
[edit]