WHAT MAKES A LEADER TRULY GREAT?

With great power comes great responsibility

Or so a superhero’s uncle once told us.

And though we don’t have super powers, as leaders, we do have

the power to influence others and the

responsibility to do it well.

There are several traits associated with being a successful leader. Let’s take a look at

them together.

As a leader, it is so important that your words equal your actions. It is imperative that you… go through a self-evaluation process on an almost daily basis to make sure that your actions are in line with your words.

–Jon Gordon, You Win in the Locker Room First: The 7 C’s to Build a Winning Team in Business,

Sports, and Life

DEPENDABILITY

[A good leader has] an understanding of the goals and how to get there, as well as an understanding of how to make goals personal for each staffer.

– Stephanie Diamond, Content Marketing Strategies For Dummies

AWARENESS

Your first and foremost job as a leader is to take charge of your own energy, and then, help to orchestrate the energy of those around you.

– Peter Drucker, Peter Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions: Enduring Wisdom for

Today’s Leaders

OPTIMISM

Leaders who operate on the basis of integrity…tell the truth. They do things on the up-and-up. They engage in fair, ethical business practices. And they deliver on their promises.

– Richard Davis, The Intangibles of Leadership: The 10 Qualities of Superior Executive Performance

HONESTY

Leadership is about providing a vision for the future and helping others support that vision with the tools needed to pursue that goal. That vision can be great or small, but participating with others in pursuit of a common good is a wonderful feeling.

– Bill Hughes, Samsung Galaxy S7 For Dummies

COLLABORATION

You simply can’t do your best without searching for new experiences, doing things you’ve never done, making mistakes, and learning from them.

– Kouzes & Posner, The Leadership Challenge

CURIOSITY

There is information overload. More than ever, there is a need to be able to sift through the noise and prioritize.

– Rosemarie Withee, Office 365 For Dummies, 2nd Edition

DECISIVENESS

Maintaining a beginner’s mindset helps keep us from becoming victims of our own successes. We all need to constantly scan the landscape and continuously assess our own business models.

– Alex Osterwalder, Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and

Services Customers Want

ADAPTABILITY

Your leadership must be rooted in who you are and what matters most to you. When you truly know yourself and what you stand for, it is much easier to know what to do in any situation.

– Harry Kraemer, Becoming the Best: Build a World-Class Organization

Through Values-Based Leadership

CONFIDENCE

COMMITMENT There is just no escaping the fact that the single biggest factor determining whether an organization is going to get healthier — or not — is the genuine commitment and active involvement of the person in charge.

– Patrick Lencioni, The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the

Three Essential Virtues

APPROACHABILITYIn the new world, the capacity to establish, develop, and maintain key relationships both inside and outside your organization is going to become the primary currency of leadership influence.

– Jeremie Kubicek, 5 Gears: How to Be Present and Productive When There is Never Enough Time

INSPIRATION Leaders must recognize that leadership is not about them and their ability to attract followers. Leadership is about serving others to bring out the best in them.

– Bill George, Discover Your True North

As leaders, we must inspire, encourage, and empower those

around us. By fostering these skills, you’re on your way to

becoming a truly great leader.

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Author photos provided by respective authors. Cover image © AMV Photo / Getty Images Wiley is a registered trademark of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.