From Clarity to Respect: Traits of Team Leadership

A good business leader needs perspective. This month, a great perspective on what makes a good leader comes from across the pond, in the U.K. publication RealBusiness. It identifies 14 qualities that make a superb team leader, someone who motivates others and inspires success.

According to RealBusiness, these traits are key:

Clear communication

State goals and objectives plainly. Give open and honest feedback. Provide reasons for directives and policies. Keep your door open and facilitate access.

Empathy

The emotional component is important to leadership. Unless you’re George Patton crossing the Rhine, standing in your Jeep barking orders isn’t going to work in today’s workplace. See your employees as people, with real lives and families, not numbers or interchangeable figures.

Vision

Every good leader has a roadmap, and a compass for the journey. A strategic vision is necessary not only for the direction of the company, but to provide direction for employees. With a vision, there can be goals; and with goals, everyone can focus on achieving them. A strategic vision is a tremendous motivator.

Flexibility

Doing things “by the book” has its place, especially when it comes to compliance issues. But for day-to-day operations, a leader needs to be able to pivot in an instant, change plans and find quick solutions to unexpected obstacles.

Accountability

It’s awfully hard to respect a blame-shifter, which is why they don’t make good team leaders. Leadership requires accountability, a “buck stops here” mentality. 

Confidence

Confidence is a winning trait in all aspects of life, and it’s something that can’t be faked. It’s also something others notice quickly — either the confidence exuded by a leader or the lack of it. 

Delegation

Micromanagers are rarely good team leaders. A key leadership skill is the ability to find good people and allow them enough flexibility to do their jobs. Filling every role and performing every task might have worked for da Vinci or Jefferson, but for everyone else delegation is vital.

Problem-solving

Almost every managerial role requires this skill. Even when your business card carries a lofty title, your real job is solving and anticipating problems. It’s the task of everyone, including the workers least likely to see themselves as nuts-and-bolts fix-it pros. As the fictional Mad Men character Don Draper once schooled a copywriter: “You’re not an artist. You solve problems.”

Positive attitude

Like confidence, attitude is contagious and obvious to everyone around you. Setting an upbeat tone also sets the cadence for the workday, and creates an atmosphere for productivity.

Continuous learning

The smartest people typically aren’t simply those with advanced degrees. The best and brightest, the smartest and wisest, are professionals who keep learning throughout their lives, adding to their store of knowledge with each day and each new challenge.

Ability to motivate others

To delegate, a team leader needs to be able to motivate employees. Without a team of motivated workers, a manager is back to micromanaging — in other words, on the road to failure. 

Lead by example

“Leading from behind” may have worked in … well, actually it hasn’t worked yet, ever, and won’t work for you. Employees want to see leaders walk the talk, and prove they believe in the mission as much as they say they do. Some of the best military commanders in history died on the battlefield. And that is because they were on the front line.

Be a good listener

This skill dovetails with the important trait of empathy. To learn from your employees you need to listen. That involves much more than “hearing” what they say. Listening is about hearing plus making a sincere effort to understand what they are telling you. 

Respect

Respect is one of those qualities that increases immeasurably the more it is given. When you respect others, and they can feel it, you will in turn be afforded great respect. And you will have earned it.