What does a good leader look like?

When considering what a good leader looks like, you will find a magnitude of books, articles, websites and opinions out there. I think of these as puzzle pieces and I want to challenge you to build this puzzle for yourself relevant to your context. Each business or industry has its own challenges, and leaders need to respond to this in an appropriate way.

To define what a great leader looks like, start by listing the competencies (not more than 5 – 8) under each of the following categories that you believe are critical for being an impactful and effective leader in your business or industry:

Leading yourself:

Consider how a good leader leads themselves and what competencies are needed for effective self-management. Learning to lead yourself well is one of the most important things you’ll ever do as a leader.
Examples can include:

  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Humility
  • Resilience

Lead others:

As a leader you need competencies that enables you to deal with the people working for you or with you.
Examples can include:

  • Interpersonal sensitivity
  • Conflict handling
  • Mobilise and develop others
  • Building high-performance teams
  • Client orientation

Lead business:

Finally, consider which competencies are the most important when leading a business where your role as a leader is to envision, drive and achieve sustainable results.
Examples can include:

  • Casting a vision
  • Planning
  • Decision Making
  • Strategy Execution

Which competencies would you consider critical under each of these categories for your business or industry? Share your views with us by commenting below:

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