7 Traits That Great LEADERS Need Right Now
Leadership
May 11, 2020
Julia Felton
Herd Leader Of Business HorsePower Ltd
Topics
best leadership practices, change leadership, leadership qualities, strategic developmentI don’t think anyone can dispute that now, more than ever, we need great leaders. People who can step up and show others the way. People who take charge, not in an overbearing way, but in a way that inspires others to follow. After all, you can’t be a leader unless others will follow you.
Leaders emerge in all shapes and sizes and from all ranks of the organization and society. Leadership is not something just reserved for the top bastion of an organization. It exists everywhere, and right now we are witnessing some great leadership and also some really poor leadership. I’ll leave you to decide which is which!
To help leaders navigate this situation, I have identified 7 characteristics they need to embody to be successful. These form the acronym LEADERS.
Leaderself
Great leaders understand that they need to look after themselves first, before they can look after others. It’s a classic case of putting your oxygen mask on first before helping others. For many leaders, this means indulging in self-care—which could include meditation, exercise, and eating and sleeping well. There is no one solution that fits everyone, but prioritizing your own well-being is paramount if you are to have the energy to inspire and motivate others.
Engaging
Leaders understand that they need to engage others. This is particularly true when so many team members are working remotely. Leaders need to spend time with these remote workers really understanding their needs and effectively communicating what is happening. During these times you can’t over-communicate—team members, customers and other stakeholders will only feel engaged if they know what is happening. And even if you don’t know what is happening, share that as well!
Adaptable
Being adaptable is a key attribute of a great leader. They are easily able to see the whole picture, recognize opportunities, and then pivot their resources to solve the challenge they have identified. There are plenty of examples of companies adapting to this change. For example, Brew Dog in the UK has pivoted to creating hand sanitizers rather than making beer.
Decisive
Great leaders are decisive. They make the difficult decisions that others won’t. Here in the UK, I think our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, made some good decisions early on putting us into lockdown. Was it popular? No, it wasn’t—but undoubtedly his actions have saved many lives.
Empathy
A component of emotional intelligence, empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Great leaders understand that how they view the situation might be very different from their team members, and indeed everyone is experiencing this situation differently. Taking the time to really connect with team members and understand their concerns is paramount to being seen as a caring leader at this time.
Resilience
Mental toughness is a requirement for leaders at all times, but none more so than now. Being able to bounce back from adversity is imperative, as is being able to maintain a great state of mind. Being positive and encouraging inspires your team to want to follow up. Resilience enables leaders to stay focused and on track, despite everything else that is happening around them.
Solution Focused
One of the great things to come out of this pandemic is the high level of innovation that we have seen. Companies have changed their work routines literally overnight, as team members have had to start working from home. Other businesses—like Brew Dog—have redirected resources to help provide much needed hand sanitizer, whilst some car producers have pivoted to create ventilators. Restaurants have moved into the takeaway market. Product development has been speeded up. For example, James Dyson designed a ventilator in a matter of days rather than months.
No one doubts that this pandemic will totally transform the way that we operate business going forward, and I firmly believe that the leaders that display great leadership at this time are the ones that will enable their companies to survive in the long term. Team members and other stakeholders will remember how they have been treated, and I firmly expect them to vote with their feet, leaving companies where they have not been supported and cared for during these challenging times.
Thank you for putting self-care first! It’s something I struggle to model for my team. Most of them are recent college grads and think they can burn the candle at both ends forever. Self-care truly is “putting your oxygen mask on first”. Without oxygen, you can forget about doing anything else.
Great resource!
In order to inspire others to follow, we must first look within and share that behavior of self care to look into others and build a community. Leadership can be handled as a team operation that requires an omniscient attitude that can connect to others and make those empowering decisions for the good of the group based on the communication, observation, and resilience that is found in an exceptional leader.
As a classroom teacher, when I used to hear the word “leadership” I thought of only administration. But researching the 7 traits, I now recognize myself as a leader among my students and 6th team and department. I will be sharing these important characteristics with my students so they can see themselves becoming great leaders in their communities.
Leaderself #= Engaging ! Adaptable #- Decisive
The 7 characteristics of to be a Successful Leader gives me a clear picture for my self as a teacher and facilitator. As a teacher we have always had to be adaptable to any situation when working with at least 80 students a day, that was no surprise. Also, resilience and empathy have been my strong suites. What surprised me most, because of the pandemic situation and the campus new school environment from March through June, was that I have learned to become more adaptable in my teaching styles. On-line learning and zoom classroom has been an eye opener. As I learn more these tools and resources, I can become a leader who is “solution focused.”
By developing our leaders at the district level, we will create a greater impact with our students. We will be able to instill the same qualities within our youth and create a unit of collaboration locally as well as globally. Thank you for the great resource.
It takes great courage and humility to become a leader. I find people to be incredibly surprising in willing to help others in a time of crisis. What holds humanity together is having empathy and resilience to work together for good.
Incorporating curriculum that addresses good leadership skills is an excellent idea. Although, many individual personality types are challenged when it comes manifesting the 7 Traits, exposure at a young age will help many.
Empathy I feel is number one. It is so important to teach the students empathy or not so much teach the students empathy but help them to understand what empathy is because it’s the only way they’re going to be able to put themselves in someone else’s position and have more understanding and more patience with other people.
I really don’t think Boris was a prime person to highlight as a leader. Instead all the women in the countries with the least amount of COVID 19 who were swift in taking action should of been mentioned. He wound up getting COVID himself because he would not stop shaking hands.
I really enjoyed the reading. The seven traits were very informative and gave me a better sense on what it takes to be a real Leader. And what a real leader has to go through to become a leader. Real leaders care, they are not fake.
The 7 traits are right on and the acronym makes them easier to remember. THANKS!
This material is bringing tears to my eyes. Our community has gone through so much and leaders are among us, the most surprising people are stepping forward. I do think this generation will never be the same after our societal challenges and the emerging solutions.
Wow! This reading was a fanally for after watching some videos about leadership. The above qualities/traits do exemplify a true leader – caring, non-judgemental, being aware, adaptation and willing to see things for what they are and move forward with what we got! That’s a true leader!!
I found the reading to be on point. I really like the way the 7 Traits Leaders Need Now are explicitly defined. I think a leader’s willing to adapt and his/her resilience is key to inspiring a moving a people forward. Empathy is very important as well, but sometimes we need to be careful it does not inadvertently turn into an enabling behavior. A true leader will be solution focused and understand that the same solution may not apply to all.
Empathy seems to be the trait I related to. As an educator, we need to show empathy to our teachers, staff, and students. If tasks are difficult and unfamiliar, empathy is important before anything, You need to be able to understand.
I feel that as educators we have to practice these traits every single day with our students , parents, and coworkers in many different ways.
The key points that really resonated with me : taking care of self first. (diet, rest and managing stress and that leaders emerge from everywhere. Leaders inspire others to follow. Thank you
Quite a bit of bunk. This seems more of the same old paradigms? Where is art as leadership, visual artist, poets, writers, musicians? Organic leaders, non-traditional and also, spiritual leader ships !!
Adaptable has been an important trait during this pandemic and it continues to be a trait for survival.
Empathy is such an important trait in a leader. It makes your team feel like you understand and care about their point of view… and decisiveness….sometimes your decisions as a leader will make you get fired like the football player that first took a knee…But he will go down in history for taking a lead despite the opposition.
I feel teachers have always been leaders wearing many different hats. Teacher, parent, counselor and even nurse at times. Empathy is an important attribute to have and to teach children the importance of walking in someone else’s shoes. However, I feel many times the admin. who are portrayed as leaders lose track of these principles and they have been removed from the classroom for many years and have lost empathy for how hard teachers work.
We shouldn’t forget that the willingness to be a leader is FIRST to truly believe in yourself and your skills or talents. We need to be willing to step up and out before we have recognition or concensus.
The 7 Traits annotated gave me a self assessment on areas of strengths and areas that I need more opportunities and experiences to help me carry the work with students, teachers, and parents.
This is a great article-and an easy read. Learning to be adaptable is key, it shows flexibility and being willing to be vulnerable. Most educators had to adapt to using distance learning platforms even if they were not tech savvy because they wanted to serve their students.
Leaderself & Decisive – #; Adaptable – +=
To me… empathy is important. It helps you to focus more deeply on the underlying reasons for the problem that need to be addressed.
I was surprised to see that Empathy was on the list. However, I see how this element relates to being vulnerable, which was the point of the previous video about new styles of leadership.
Emily McCrary….. I could not agree with you more, I even had the same thought of the Stewardess telling older people to put on their masks first to help children or other people that may need assistance.
The idea of Leaderself resonated with me. I have seen myself and others do so much to try to lead others in a certain direction while neglecting themselves which impacts a leaders effectiveness. If you don’t care for yourself, you reduce your capacity to be an effective leader.
very thought provoking. We are leaders in many different ways in the school and classroom setting as teachers and colleagues.
I enjoyed learning about the 7 characteristics leaders need to embody to be successful. I like how the seven characteristics form the acronym LEADERS!
“Leaderself” resonated with me
The great leaders that lead me understand that they need to look after themselves first. They partake in Self-Care! They practice some form of meditation, mindfulness. They exercise and eat and sleep well. They prioritize their own well-being which enables them to have the energy to lead!
I enjoyed learning about the 7 characteristics leaders need to embody to be successful. I like how the seven characteristics form the acronym LEADERS!
“Leaderself” resonated with me
The great leaders that lead me understand that they need to look after themselves first. They partake in Self-Care! They practice some form of meditation, mindfulness. They exercise and eat and sleep well. They prioritize their own well-being which enables them to have the energy to lead!
# = Something significant.
I definitely agree that as teachers during a pandemic, we need to be solution focused, adaptable and find ways to best engage our students. One example might be if a teacher who knows many of her students thrive in routine, uses daily zoom lessons to continue some type of daily routine and social skills practice by following the same structure to her lesson of : welcome/song/lesson/story/song/goodbyes in the same order each day, over zoom.
Leaderself is a great word. It got my attention. And although “self care” is a buzz word now, it’s really true. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you eating well? Are you getting enough exercise? Are you doing something you find enjoyable or relaxing? Take care of yourself and step back from it from time to time. You need to refresh and recharge in order to have something to offer. That’s so important, especially now.
All traits listed are important. Any that are left out will diminish the effectiveness of competent leadership, as shown by our current sitting president.
The 7 Great Traits of leaders was so well executed and the concise explanations with examples are easily applied and lived in my role as an Assistant Principal of a school within a complex of three schools. I am an over-communicator by nature and I thank you for the feedback that in a crisis their is no need to worry about being highly communicative. I have been an empath since I was much younger and I continue to not assume I know how people are doing and or where their emotion is coming from but I listen and I learn and I clarify before I feel comfortable understanding what they are feeling, how it is manifesting. My team is my strength and I am theirs.
Thank you for this great concise 7 Leadership traits needed now. I believe they will serve for a very long time.
# prioritizing your well being- self care
! Brew Dog making sanitizer rather than beer
+ Empathy and Solution Focused
Leaderself as the first characteristic makes sense because most, including myself, put it last.
This was a very good read. It highlighted the importance of empowering parents as stakeholders. It also helped me to see my value as a leader. I loved that it discussed the development of resiliency in these unprecedented times and how our educational system has been transformed.
I was just thinking and reading all of the comments above, yes empathy is so important to teach others to care about others. Today we have black lives matter too! It is sad that racial profiling exist today. We need to engage others and our educational communities. I always thought we lead by example.
We have to be resilience
, be positive , and be encouraging. Not easy to do sometimes, but we do want to improve our children and their future.
I love the acronym!
I agree with the traits you listed but what’s missing is Service especially if you have a leadership role in government or even as teachers in a classroom. As leaders, we have to mentally condition ourselves that our priority is to help other adults or children. If we learn to accept that and we serve with joy, then everything else will be easy to follow.
I think these traits are the core of leadership, right now we know who is not being a leader. I also agree, I have always thought of people with more power to be the leader. This has made me think who are the real leaders, very informative.
It is a great guide to be able to identify what a good leader is. A great tool of reflection about ourselves. Am I a leader? Am I a good leader? Do I count with the elements mentioned in the article?
Leaderself is the most important trait that I needed to emphasize. A leader also sets an example by how they treat themselves and the healthy habits that they exercise.
I completely agree with the empathy portion, even though everyone in a team is going through situations differently and experiencing it differently it is important to listen and have empathy.
I enjoyed reading and learning about the 7 things leaders need right now. I wondered if I had any of those skills! As I read the article, I concluded that indeed, I have the 7 things leaders need right now. Immediately, my students came to mind. I am leading them! Even though, I knew I was leading students, I didn’t think of myself as a leader. The readings have made me reflect. I also wondered, how parents are leaders in their own homes and with their families. Thinking deeper, I believe Covid-19 pushed us to reflect and learn that we are all leaders, we adapt, have resilience and empathy, make decisions, take care of self and so much more. However, before we have true followers, we must believe it!
After reading this article on the 7 traits of leaders, and as I go back and reread key points that stood out, I am trying to visualize and internalize these traits … aspiring to be a leader to my loved ones, to those I come in contact with, to my students and all of those that I am meant to lead, that IS effective and even more importantly, helpful, in this time of world-wide pain, crisis, budding hope and a renewed sense of collaboration. I mostly want to be aware and responsive where there is need.
The 7 straits for Great leaders empowered me to think that I too can be a leader. I never thought of myself as being a leader. A true leader is genuine and true to his authentic self. They set clear expectations with their team and collaborates. They do not cover up the bad they share and stand up even if they might be criticized. They move forward and empower others to believe in themselves to lead as well in their capacity.
# Something Significant
A great leader must take care of them self emotionally, spiritually and physically before they can lead others. This allows leaders to look at problems from the outside, and make a well educated decision without their emotions getting in the way. This showed me a new way of how to tackle difficult issues while leading.