We have been talking this week about the “Qualities of Successful Leadership.” So far, I have given you 16 of 24 positive leadership qualities taken from surveys of employees and team members. These are qualities that these people have said they appreciate in those that lead them. Today, I will go over the final 8 positive leadership qualities on the list of 24.

I hope that you are getting a lot out of this series. As a leader, you need to constantly be working on improving your own leadership abilities. You will never really, “arrive” at a level where you will never need to improve. Don’t believe me, ask your wife!

#17: The ability to make decisions. Decision making is a critical skill for effective management and leadership.

#18: Understanding your teams perspective.  A very important skill you can develop is to look at the situation from different perspectives. Look at things from the customer perspective, you team's perspective, your competitors perspective and your peers perspective (in addition to your perspective).

#19: Be Consistent in Your Expectations: This goes both ways. One, your expectations of them. That what they did yesterday, the day before and last month is still what is expected from them today, tomorrow and into the future (unless situations change – in which case, you need to make sure the new expectations are explained in advance). Two, their expectations of you! They expect you to treat everyone with respect and equally (i.e. No Favorites)! 

#20:  Empower Others to Succeed:  Great leaders are great at empowering others. I like to say it like this: “A leaders job is to empower others to achieve every mission as if it was the team’s ideas that made it successful.”

#21:  Adapt to change:  Much of what happens to us, in business and in life, is truly not under our control. So, besides death and taxes, the next guarantee in life is CHANGE! So your ability to adapt to a changing environment will be put to the test in building your team’s ability to change as well. This change must not be dramatic. It must not be done “willy-nilly.” It must be anticipated. It must be planned for. You must do your research and get your team to buy into the change.

#22: Be organized:  One of the great attributes of an effective leader is organization. The ability to always know what is happening. To follow up on prior discussions or projects. Not allowing anything to “fall through the cracks” and be lost. If you do not have a solid organizational system in place – develop one!

#23: Lead by Example:  This is one of the top leadership traits from the military. A leader will never command his/her soldiers to do something they would not be willing to do themselves. Sometimes, their team may think, “I bet he/she would not do this.” – but they simply forget that the leader had “to do this” at some point in their career!

#24: Show patience with those you lead:  A great leader will be able to lead without making every single decision a “life or death” issue. If you have planned for, anticipated and trained for various scenarios, you are way ahead in the game. When something does happen, you already have an idea of what to do. You just issue the directives to the team. They have already rehearsed these scenarios as well. They know what you are doing and why.

These “24 Positive Leadership Qualities” will help you to focus on what matters in developing as a leader. These are the traits and qualities many employees and team members have identified as being important to them. I have added my commentary after each to give you an understanding of what each quality means.