Leadership: The One Quality You Need to Be the Best

If one of your goals is to achieve professional advancement, understanding your own leadership potential is essential.

There is a long list of desirable leadership attributes. But there is one rarely discussed but incredibly important characteristic that is most essential.

In fact, it doesn’t matter how many boxes you check if you can’t check this one.

Today, we’re going to discuss the reason why this characteristic is a fundamental requirement for all leaders, and how to figure out if you have it.

Leadership: Knowing Who You Are is Job #1

There are many books, studies, and podcasts devoted to the study of leadership.

The list of desirable qualities for leaders is long.

As noted above, however that there is one key requirement of a successful leader that trumps all the others.

We must first know ourselves before we can effectively lead others.

Leaders must have a code of ethics and a strong sense of their own identity that enables them to provide consistent leadership to teams and colleagues.

This consistency promotes clarity and trust, two things fundamental to productive and healthy professional relationships.

This leadership characteristic contains two components:

• leaders must be clear on their own identity and be able to effectively articulate their core values.
• leaders must consistently demonstrate their commitment to their values in both words and actions.

The most successful leaders are able to model a consistent value system across all situations and relationships.

In other words, strong leadership requires not only alignment between personal values and organizational goals, but also the ability to “walk the talk”.

That is, speak and act consistently with the tenets and priorities that we consider our guiding principles.

What Values Resonate with You?

Core values form the foundation of who we are as people and guide and inform our decision-making processes.

Identifying and aligning with our core values leads to a more fulfilling and authentic life, and super-charges our ability to lead others.

So, what are the values that form your core identity?

If you need inspiration, consider these ideas to get started:

• Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Choosing integrity as a core value means upholding ethical standards, being truthful, and acting with sincerity.

• Respect involves valuing others’ opinions, beliefs, and boundaries. Selecting respect as a core value means treating others with kindness, empathy, and consideration, fostering healthy relationships and communication.

• Courage is the ability to face challenges, take risks, and step outside of your comfort zone. Embracing courage as a core value can lead to personal growth, resilience, and the willingness to pursue your passions fearlessly.

• Compassion entails showing empathy, understanding, emotional intelligence and kindness towards others, especially during difficult times. Making compassion a core value can nurture a sense of connection, altruism, and community support.

• Perseverance is the determination to continue striving towards your goals despite obstacles and setbacks. Perseverance fosters resilience, determination, and a mindset focused on growth and progress.

• Gratitude involves acknowledging and appreciating the goodness in one’s life, both big and small. It cultivates positivity, mindfulness, and a sense of abundance and well-being.

• Authenticity is the practice of being true to oneself and aligning one’s actions with one’s beliefs and values. It encourages self-awareness, self-acceptance, and genuine connections with others.

• Responsibility entails taking ownership of one’s actions, decisions, and impact on others and the environment. It promotes accountability, ethical conduct, and making choices that consider the greater good.

Reflect on these potential core values and consider which ones resonate most strongly with your authentic self and aspirations for the future.

Identifying values that truly speak to you can help you better articulate your principles and can be a touchstone to help guide your future actions, decisions, and relationships.

Modelling Your Values is Job #2

The second key component of the most fundamental leadership characteristic is honoring the core values that you claim as your own. Though it may be challenging, and a bit uncomfortable, you need to reflect and ask yourself some difficult questions. Specifically:

• How do you think you’re doing in terms of honoring your core values in your day-to-day life?
• Are you consistent in how you present yourself at home, at work, among friends?

It may be hard to develop an objective assessment. You may need to solicit feedback from colleagues, mentors, friends, and even family members who you trust.

Ask for specific examples of when they have seen you demonstrate leadership, when your leadership skills were effective and when they may have fallen short.

Objective feedback can provide valuable insights into areas where you excel as a leader and areas where you can improve.

Several leadership potential assessment tools are available online to provide additional insights into your strengths and areas for development. These tools offer structured assessments that can further enhance your understanding of your leadership capabilities.

Leaders Must Know They Are

So how did you do? Did you learn anything from this initial exercise?

Do you need to spend more time in reflection to refine your core values?

Or do you need to develop other core competencies to help you model your core values in all aspects of life?

It’s key to set goals to improve these competencies as your first leadership challenge.

When you’re ready to move forward, there are a wide range of other characteristics that collectively define a successful and impactful leader.

By embodying these characteristics and continually honing your leadership skills, you can inspire positive change, foster growth, and make a lasting impact on people, teams and organizations.

To learn more about characteristics essential to successful leadership, visit What Makes a Strong Leader? Leadership Characteristics and Attributes.

Thank you as always for reading.

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KindCompassCoach

Joan Senio is the founder of KindCompassCoach. Her career includes 20+ years as a private sector corporate executive and 15 years as a consultant. The common thread through her professional life has been a commitment to compassionate coaching and leadership, including mentoring early and mid-career professionals as well as current and future executives and leaders. KindCompassCoach articles are backed by research and include facts and advice from relevant experts. Joan is a member of the International Organization of Life Coaches, serves as a thought-leader for KuelLife.com and is a regular contributor to PsychReg and Sixty and Me.