14 Qualities of A Good Leader You Must Know

Qualities of A Good Leader – For a long time, leaders have kept ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ separate. And while many leaders have been successful in getting the project completed using this mechanism, they certainly couldn’t become truly successful or extraordinary in their fields.

After all, you need to be respected to be heard, but as a leader, you have to go beyond the respect and be likeable.

Related: 11 Habits of Extraordinary People.

You have to reveal the ‘person’ behind the leader to inspire your team and help them reach their fullest potential. If you hope to be a successful leader, then you have to likeable. Striking that balance between the ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ is, therefore, essential.

But why? Because while professional skills can bring motivation to the work environment, it is your personal habits and the feelings attached to your role that will affect how you are perceived in the office. So, approachability, humility and positivity work as much, if not more than your intelligence, attractiveness and ability to coordinate.

It’s all within your reach

Guess what! Being a quality leader, who possess the charm as well as Emotional Intelligence or Quotient, EQ is within your reach. A bit of an effort and feeling will help you develop and nurture likeable qualities of a good leader. TalentSmart suggests that certain traits can help leaders succeed while making them more likeable.

These are the key qualities of a Good Leader that you should be engaging in & right answer of how to be likeable.

Asking Questions

As a leader, you have to be communicative. You don’t just have to say, you have to listen. But sometimes, leaders can become so focused on hearing their employees that they forget to listen. And between all those deliberations or discussions, the meaning is lost. So, what should you do? Well, you should ask questions.

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs did it; and a thousand other great leaders did it! This helps employees know that they are being heard and appreciated. Go ahead! Ask the question that can make your product or service better.

Form Personal Connections

As mentioned earlier, professionalism can help sustain and grow your workplace. But personal connections will help take everything a notch higher. Likeable leaders are the ones that communicate on the emotional level, form personal relationships.

After all, your personality characteristics and the way you are perceived is largely affected by how the employees think of you. So, practice being humble and personal with the flesh and blood person standing next to you.

Are Approachable

One of the many great things about a good leader is that they are very approachable. Jonathan Ive, who was just a regular employee at Apple Inc. Went on to be a co-designer and team leader for projects as varied as iMac and iPhone.

Why? Because Jobs was approachable. He actually believed in Ive’s capacities irrespective of his rank in the office. That made the employees feel valuable and consequently led to the resurgence of the company. Plus you should know the behavior of Genuine People.

They Practice Consistency

Top of the great qualities of a good leader that they distinguishes a likeable and an unlikeable leader is consistency. Now, unlikeable leaders are usually all over the place. They tend to focus on way too many projects and have dwindling priorities. So, while they may be respected, they are usually not liked- because employees don’t have a clue on what to focus upon.

However, likeable leaders are consistent, not just in their priorities, but even in their approach with people. Their responses are reliable, and their mood doesn’t affect how they treat people.

Humility

Perhaps the biggest factor that distinguishes a bad leader from a likeable one is humility. Just because you are a leader doesn’t give you the right to be arrogant. Likeable leaders don’t associate prestige with position, and they are a walking example of humility.

In fact, they are usually more accountable, and that’s what makes them more likeable to the employees or other people in the first place. And they know very well how to avoid the toxic peoples.

Optimism

You need a positive outlook on life. And you need positivity to steer your team through challenges. A likeable leader practices optimism in personal and professional life. With humility and other habits of leader, they ensure that there’s positivity around.

So, what they share is a vision or an idea rather than giving a presentation. Their enthusiastic positivity provides other a hope for the future.

Also Read: How To Be A Good Boss.

Embrace the Truth

Of course, they are optimistic, but they even embrace the truth. If something is going wrong, they go ahead and change it. At the same time, they are honest about the details. So, if a project failed because of the technology, they acknowledge it. They even recognize and take responsibility if the mistake or failure was due to an act committed by them! This sharing of truth makes them likeable across the stage.

The Power of Storytelling

Stories, whether personal or professional can be inspiring for the people. And great leaders use them to their benefit. They know that a presentation with bulleted points might not work, but a story, a backdrop would engage them.

So, a vision that they present is like an advertisement, only better- narrating a tale, providing a solution and detailing the end product. This makes the ideas more personal.

Respecting the ‘Timing.’

You, as a leader have to create deadlines when the protocols have to be dealt with, when the blueprints should be ready and when the product must be launched. That would make you respected. But what will make you more likeable is your respect for timing! Timing is the ability to understand finally your team, to observe and acknowledge every situation and act accordingly.

So, likeability may stem from an extended deadline you provided your employee because they were stressing and crashing on a product. Or, it could be the timing when you decided to leave everything else and focused on doing something unselfish for your employees.

Positive Body Language

You can fake humility, you can fake positivity, but you can be given away by your body language. So, the ideal way to be more likeable is to transform truly yourself into a better person. That would provide you a positive body language.

What would make you more friendly is your expressions, or the tone of your voice or your gestures. This is how high EQ people draw others to them.

Practice Generosity

You don’t want to hold yourself! You want to give what you have, whether it regards knowledge or resources. Likeable leaders are often generous, committing acts of unselfishness along the way. Their unfailing generosity is how they ensure that the teams get the best resources. They are confident and are never scared when others succeed.

Reading People Like A Book

An essential EQ skill for leaders is their ability to understand unspoken communication. Did you know that over 80% of our communication is done through our body language? That’s how important those expressions, tones, gesture and body language is! So, likeability stems from a leader’s ability to read people like a book.

They can know what’s going on in others’ life by simply noticing their behavior. A leader will be more likeable if s/he comes up and addresses their employees’ issues without having them come to him over and over again. Here is how you can be a likeable person in general.

Appreciate Potential

Do you know what differentiates an ordinary leader from an extraordinary one? Well, they are never afraid to appreciate potential! Charisma isn’t just about getting things about, and it is about recognizing and appreciating the potential in a way that motivates others! By drawing out the potential in people, you allow people to give their best. And that what makes an extraordinary leader.

Using Substance to Succeed

Great that you have made a product. Even better if you have marketed it well. However, it’s not great if you let the success get in your head if you puff yourself and pretend to be something better. That’s the trait of an unlikeable leader.

To be likeable, you have to have other people’s attention. You have to draw out the best in them and share your substance with the world. Let them get the credit, whenever needed and don’t be pretentious to be more likeable.

Lastly, understand that being nice won’t always get you ahead. But being humble, positive and approachable will help you succeed. Speaking up makes a difference, and you have to blend in a mixture of all these traits to be a likeable leader in the first place.

Also Read: The People Who Can Destroy Your Business

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