Good Leadership Skills | What are Characteristics of a Great Leader

Leadership is something that is developed over an entire lifetime. There are some who are natural leaders and some who have to work a little harder at it. In either case, good leadership skills can always be developed and improved upon.

Although leadership is developed over many years, there are some key ingredients that are common in all good leaders. Some are more difficult than others. And some may cause you to do some soul searching as a leader.

So what are good leadership skills that are common to all great leaders? The common characteristics of all good leaders are high expectations, affirmation and encouragement, authenticity and lastly inspiration.

A good leader always expects the best of their followers, even the are not performing at the highest levels. Everyone has a innate desire to live up to their leaders' expectations. If your expectations are low, they will live up to that. If your expectations are high, they may not live up to it, but it'll be higher than if it is not. Most people are more capable than you might first think.

Treat people like they are a 10 and you might get a 7 or an 8 performance. Treat people like they are a 5 and the maximum performance you get will be a 5. It is a rare occassion when you need to pretend to treat them like a 5 so they will rise up to prove you wrong. Some people need this, but not most and not as a default.

Affirmation and Encouragement

Good leaders constantly affirm and encourage the people they are leading. Most people have something that can always be affirmed about them. Even when someone makes a mistake, it's usually one mistake out of an entire day of good work. Make sure you affirm their good work, even when they do make a mistake or don't meet your expectations.

Whenever someone makes a mistake or you have to correct someone's behavior or actions, you should always lead off with saying positive things about them. This is not some leadership trick. This is about affirming the positives that are actually there. It's not about making good stuff up so you get a better reaction to your correction. It's about telling them what you should be telling them all along about the good aspects of their performance.

This is the hard part if you don't genuine care for the people under your leadership.  Here's the thing.  People follow first a person and then a vision.  No matter how important your goals are, people must first trust you.  And if you want them to trust you, you first have to be trustworthy.

That means you have to genuinely care about the people following.  You have to see them as human beings first, before you see them as a function on your team.  They are not robots.  If they can sense your genuine care for them, they will trust you and will do anything for you.  If not, they will do the bare minimum.

This is where many leaders will fall short.  Most leaders care much about their goals and what their team or organization is trying to accomplish.  Many care deeply about their vision and mission.  But it is a rare leader who actually cares about the people in the organization.

People need a reason to act. They need motivation and they need inspiration to do something that is bigger than they are. If you are just about making money, people who follow you will also just do things for the money. And that will eventually come back to bite you.

You need a purpose that goes beyond money. And it needs to be something that inspires your people to go beyond themselves. Deep down in our being, money does not satisfy enough to motivate us over time. People need something more than that.

High expectations, affirmation and encouragement, authenticity and inspiration are the characteristics that go into good leadership skills. All great leaders have these qualities in common. And all of these qualities can be developed no matter where you are as a leader.