3 Core Leadership Qualities Needed to Make a Positive Change

Good leaders help guide us, make the tough calls that keep organizations, companies, and countries moving forward. Determining whether moving forward is beneficial or harmful depends on the leader’s ability to recognize if their actions will impact others in a beneficial or harmful way.

 We can spot a bad leader almost immediately. Our society has proven quite adept at this. The question here is can we spot a good leader and what is it exactly that would make a good leader?

Positive Leadership requires action (focus), provides direction (vision), and that it inspires (character).

FOCUS 

The first Core Leadership Quality is Focus. Self-Awareness, to look within oneself and listen to your inner voice. Those who heed their inner voice ultimately make better decisions as they will use this connection with your ‘real self’ to elicit resources or clarity in decision making. It is a concept not easily explained so let’s dive into an example here.

Pay careful attention to your body’s internal signals. These are physiological changes, very subtle, that your brain does notice with concentration. This area of your brain, tucked behind your frontal lobes is known as the insula. Sit still and tune into the insula by focusing on your heartbeat. With practice, you will recognize this and other “stories” your body tells you.

VISION

The second Core Leadership Quality is Vision. Make a draft of your goal(s). Share with others. Refine it using feedback and support your vision with commitment and inspiration that moves you personally.

Now try it out with colleagues. Ask your colleagues/team to create a vision and share it with each other. This will definitely build trust as you discover how to capitalize on what drives each individual and use strength in diversity as a major competence.

Communication is the ultimate key to this qualities’ success. Positive delivery, placing a high value on two-way communication, meet often if needed, over-communicate and choosing the right words by knowing your audience will support your Vision.

CHARACTER

The third Core Leadership Quality is Character. Respectfulness of others and your beliefs, fairness, cooperation, compassion, and humility are the traits you use to bring out this skill.

The self-discipline and courage of taking action on your vision, the passion used to achieve acceptance of your goals, brought forth by the wisdom and competence gained from experience will be used to transform the strength of your leadership.

The social conscience of your leadership character is brought forward by being mindful of your integrity, honesty, loyalty, and selflessness as a leader.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Leaders more accustomed to giving input rather than being attentive will have trouble with any of the above. Be wary of the ‘noise’ distracting the path to achieving your vision. Leaders who stay true to their personal values are known to succeed better in the long run.

You must believe in and practice these three Leadership Qualities and be aware that the outcome will benefit yourself, those around you and others you may not meet, without negative impact or consequences.