According to the Center for Creative Leadership after working with leaders at thousands of organizations they have found the best leaders possess 12 essential leadership traits.
#1. Self-Awareness
The better leaders understand themselves and recognize their own strengths and weaknesses, the more effective they can be as leaders.
#2. Respect
Respect, shown consistently, is one of the most important things a leader can do. Building a culture of respect helps ease tensions and conflict, fosters trust, and improves effectiveness.
#3. Compassion
Compassion is more than simply showing empathy or even listening and seeking to understand. Compassion requires leaders to act on what they learn.
#4. Vision
Vision means a leader’s aspiration for the future. Motivating others and garnering commitment toward that vision are essential parts of leadership.
#5. Communication
The best leaders can skillfully communicate in a variety of ways, both orally and in writing, and with a wide range of people from different backgrounds, roles, levels, geographic and more.
#6. Learning Agility
Learning agility is the ability to know what to do when you don’t know what to do. All great leaders are really great learners.
#7. Collaboration
Great leaders value and embrace collaboration, working effectively with people of different social identities, locations, roles, and experiences. They span boundaries and learn to work across various types of divides.
#8. Influence
Requiring high levels of emotional intelligence and trust, leaders must be able to influence others to get the work done-they cannot do it alone. Influence is quite different from manipulation, and it needs to be done authentically and transparently.
#9. Integrity
Integrity-being consistent, honest, moral, and trustworthy-is an essential leadership trait especially important for top- level executives who are charting the course and making countless significant decisions.
#10. Courage
Courage enables leaders-and their team members- to take bold actions that move things in the right direction. It’s a key leadership trait because it takes courage and truth-telling, to do what’s right.
#11. Gratitude
Gratitude is the uplifting emotion experienced after receiving something of value. Sincere gratitude makes you a better leader. The best leaders know how to actively show gratitude in the world.
#12. Resilience
Resilience is more than the ability to bounce back from obstacles and setbacks-it’s the ability to respond adaptively to challenges. It also means projecting a positive outlook that will help others maintain the emotional strength they need to commit to a shared vision, and the courage to move forward and overcome setbacks.
So how does your candidate measure up to this list?
