Leadership Traits – A great List

Leadership Traits – A great List

What are the qualities and characteristics of a good leader? Great leaders possess core leadership traits and skills. The list includes the most important leadership qualities and skills to look for in a great leader. These are must-have traits of a powerful and successful leader, the qualities a leader possess to be great.

A broad classification to six categories of traits is also done below: 

Physical Characteristics of the Leader:

  • Age
  • Height
  • Weight
  • Alertness
  • Energetic 
  • Masculinity
  • High energy level
  • Physical stamina
  • Tolerance for stress
  • Not concerned about being overworked
  • Vitality

Background Characteristics of the Leader:

  • Education
  • Social Status
  • Mobility
  • Experience
  • Experience in a variety of different types of situations
  • Broader perspective
  • Expertise in dealing with different types of problems
  • Competent and skilled

Intelligence Characteristics of the Leader:

  • Ability
  • Judgment
  • Knowledge
  • Clever (intelligent)
  • Conceptually skilled
  • Creative
  • Knowledgeable about group task 
  • Intellectual breadth 
  • Insight
  • Learns from experience
  • Adapts to change
  • Good judgment
  • Foresight
  • Intuition
  • Creativity
  • Self-knowledge
  • Coordinator
  • Objective
  • Decisive
  • Asks for more responsibility
  • Knows how to delegate

Personality/Emotional Characteristics of the Leader: 

  • Aggressiveness
  • Alertness
  • Dominance
  • Decisiveness
  • Enthusiasm
  • Extroversion
  • Independence
  • Self-confidence
  • Authoritarianism
  • Assertive
  • Tolerant of stress 
  • Conservatism
  • Desire to improve
  • Understands own strengths and weaknesses
  • Self-objectivity
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Self-awareness
  • Empathy
  • Self-regulation
  • Ambitious
  • Courageous
  • Knows self
  • Risk taker
  • Not intimidated by superiors
  • Personal competence
  • Optimistic
  • Exhibits concern for others
  • Encourages and engages opposing viewpoints
  • Constant and reliable
  • Self-disciplined
  • Determination
  • Need to achieve
  • Caring
  • Empathizing
  • Constancy

Task-Oriented Characteristics of the Leader:

  • Achievement Needs
  • Responsibility
  • Initiative
  • Persistence
  • Ambitiousness
  • Achievement-orientated
  • Decisive
  • Persistent
  • Willingness to assume responsibility
  • Organized (administrative ability)  

Social Characteristics of the Leader:

  • Sociability
  • Supervisory Ability
  • Cooperativeness
  • Popularity
  • Prestige
  • Tact
  • Diplomacy
  • Adaptability
  • Adjustment
  • Cooperative
  • Dependable
  • Tactful
  • Persuasive 
  • Socially skilled 
  • Emotional stability and composure
  • Good interpersonal skills
  • Well-adjusted
  • Oriented toward improving self
  • Detached
  • Honest
  • Ethical
  • Trustworthy
  • Behavioral flexibility
  • Understanding
  • Empathy
  • Social Insight
  • Charm
  • Tact
  • Diplomacy
  • Persuasiveness
  • Listener
  • Collaborative
  • Strong motivator
  • Cooperative
  • Influencer

Communication:

  • Ability to communicate
  • Ability to articulate a vision
  • Ability to persuade others
  • Communicate purpose
  • Communicate direction
  • Communicates passion to others
  • Good communication skills
  • Use metaphors
  • Experts at one-to-one communication
  • Superior speakers
  • Excellent writing skills
  • Creates and maintains a communications network
  • Has people keep them informed on problem situations
  • Networks with people inside the organization
  • Maintains contacts outside the organization
  • Doesn’t depend on only one source for information
  • Able to communicate with key individuals
  • Eager to explore new approaches to their work
  • Are not fuzzy about results, interested in ways to track their progress
  • Communicates persuasively
Leadership Traits – A great List

Related Links

You May Also Like

  • Enviornment Approach

    Enviornment Approach

    According to Environmental theories of leadership, a leader needs to deal effectively with environmental complexities and lead in a certain style as a result of environmental responses. Environmental influenced leadership demand leaders to learn how to adjust environmental factors. Leaders also have the responsibility of creating the right kind of environment for their followers by focusing on environmental factors and pressures.

  • Self-Leadership

    Self-Leadership

    Self-leadership is a normative model of self-influence by the use of several behavioral strategies to gain a comprehensive self-influence perspective about oneself. Self-leadership is developing an understanding of your capabilities and abilities to influence your own communication, emotions, and behaviors to lead and influence others. Self-leadership is about personal growth and developing foresight.

  • Attribution Theory of Leadership

    Attribution Theory of Leadership

    The attribution theory of leadership deals with the formation of individual opinions about the reasons for particular events or observations. People will always try to understand why people do what they do. The leader will make a judgment about his employees based on his attribution of the causes of the employees' performance. Individuals will also make inferences about the leader and react to poor performance by the leader.

  • Lewin’s Change Management Model

    Lewin’s Change Management Model

    Lewin's change management model is a framework for managing organizational change. Lewin's methodology of different Leadership Styles recognizes three distinct stages of change - creating the perception; moving toward the new desired level of behavior and, ensuring new behavior as the norm.

  • Contingency Theories in Action

    Contingency Theories in Action

    Contingency theory suggests matching the best leader to a specific situation based on situational factors and the leadership style. The practical application of theory can be done in various ways. The workplace example is to determine the best candidate for a given set of requirements using the LPC score. Applying the model to determine a leader's ability to adapt in the scenario of a new project etc..

  • Ohio State Studies

    Ohio State Studies

    Early studies on leadership were done at Ohio State University using the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire to identify the leader's observable behaviors. Ohio State study on leadership found two behavioral characteristics of leadership - people-oriented (consideration) and task-oriented (initiating structure) leadership style.

  • Managerial Grid Theory

    Managerial Grid Theory

    Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid is a style leadership model that identified five manager styles based on two dimensions viz concern for people and the concern for production. Managerial Grid uses concern for production style which is largely based on McGregor's Theory X.

  • Five-Factor Personality Model

    Five-Factor Personality Model

    Five Factors Model (FFM) also known as Five-Factor Personality Model is based on five broad personality traits which are extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness represented by acronym OCEAN, these traits are often referred to as the “Big Five”.

  • Investment Theory of Creativity

    Investment Theory of Creativity

    Sternberg in the year 2006, proposed the investment and confluence theory focused on understanding creativity. According to the investment theory, creativity requires a confluence of six distinct but interrelated resources known as intellectual abilities, knowledge, styles of thinking, personality, motivation, and environment. It emphasizes that creativity is not about one thing, but about a system of things.

  • Michigan Studies

    Michigan Studies

    Michigan Leadership Studies led to behavioral Leadership Theory as a result of a leadership study conducted at the University of Michigan. Michigan studies identified three important behaviors of leadership called task-oriented behavior, relationship-oriented behavior, and participative leadership. Two leadership styles associated with studies are employee orientation and production orientation.

Explore Our Free Training Articles or
Sign Up to Start With Our eLearning Courses

Subscribe to Our Newsletter


© 2023 TechnoFunc, All Rights Reserved