Great leaders often start from nothing. They build their way up by adopting the proper mindset, by attaching themselves emotionally to their cause, and finally, by taking real action on a consistent basis. That, and so much more.
You see, many great leaders have existed, do exist, and will exist. Leadership is often considered to be a born trait, and that only a few select individuals will benefit from such amazing qualities.

Wrong.

That’s far from the truth. There’s no such thing as a “natural born leader”. Yes, nature can favor you… a great look, a brilliant mind, good creativity, ability to communicate…these qualities will help you succeed. But. In order to become a true leader, you need to realize that your traits and skills can and should be improved consistently over time.

Great leaders shine because they’ve worked hard. For every hour they appear on TV, they’ve put up probably 50 hours of work in a quiet or lousy room. Their lives weren’t all fun and joy. Hustle and hard work, completed by a sense of higher responsibility are mostly present in the lives of today’s leaders.

In today’s post, we’re going to present 14 main features of a true leader. Note that these qualities and traits are always upgradeable, so please do not allow your limiting beliefs to slow you down. Stay open, take notes, become inspired, make a plan, and finally, take action.

Sense of Purpose
 
A leader is a person who will decide the faith of others. His role is to make the right decisions so that the organization can make progress. Every big leader has a deep sense of purpose. It's like every writer tries to bring some idea or an opinion through his creation, whether it's a book, article or essays. Nevertheless, there’s quite a big difference between a purpose and a goal.

When you plan goals, you’re strategizing, planning, and organizing your future actions. A purpose is something much deeper than that. As Viktor Frankl said, “It’s purpose that ignores your heart and stirs your passion. It’s the reason you get up in the morning.”

Indeed, exceptional leaders know what they want. Not just that they know it, but they’re also using their purpose to inspire others to take action.

High Levels of Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is surely a trait that prevails in most of the characters of today’s big leaders. Take a look at Donald Trump. Try not to think of him from a political standpoint of view. Instead, pay attention to his crazy self-confidence. He’s speaking without fear, eager to do and promise stuff. The empires that he has built and the revenues that he made were heavily influenced by remarkable self-confidence.

Trump was one out of thousands. In most cases, without sufficient levels of self-confidence, it’ll be hard to attain such an important role especially if you were to lead an important company.

Results-Oriented
 
Leaders that seek results almost obsessively are likely to achieve what they propose in most of the cases. However, even the greatest leading figure could not have achieved what they’ve achieved without leveraging other people’s skills and knowledge. Resourcefulness and team collaboration are two aspects which are heavily linked to a results-oriented mindset.

First off, you must seek a system that allows your company to effectively make progress towards your goals. Then, you need to teach your team how to do the same. In addition, you can assign different roles and tasks to your talented team members in such a way that your leadership job becomes simplified.

You’ll be able to take care of the important decisions and put your focus on energy on what you can do best, and that’s the best you can do for your organization. Seek results instead of counting the worked hours, and make your team do the same.

Proactive

To achieve great things, you can’t sit around and wait for somebody else to do the thinking and the work for you. True leaders understand that, and they also acknowledge that progress and growth are entirely dependent on their attitude. For a company to grow, the leader must be proactive and make new moves on the behalf of the organization.

Most of the times, normal employees do not have big dreams or big goals. Therefore, they will rarely be proactive because the potential personal rewards may not be so exciting.

However, the leader of the company has more responsibility and his dreams and purpose are strong. The performance of his organization depends on his ability to position his brand in the marketplace, which often includes a lot of new implementations and out-of-the-box ideas. Proactivity is key!

Innovative

You know you’re innovative when you see solutions that are not so obvious when your mind flies further than most people’s minds wander, and when your ideas and implementations have the potential of creating something never seen before.

Take Elon Musk as an example. This highly successful leader and entrepreneur has managed to create the first private airspace company. The purpose of SpaceX is to make the human species an interplanetary species, so we can decrease the chances of human extinction. He has also developed Tesla – the first electric car company that made it big.

You see, Elon Musk is probably the most innovative leader of the modern times. He coordinates thousand of employees that are working with the same purpose. When a leader is innovative, people will become inspired and will soon start to think big for themselves.

Growth Oriented

Growth orientation is another highly efficient part of the mindset of many successful leaders. If you want to grow your company, you need to grow yourself. By that, I’m talking about developing professional and personal skills that’ll help you in the journey towards riches.

Every person or company that aims high needs to consistently grow in resources and skills. For example, if you want to be a great leader, you need to develop dozens of skills that will help you manage both yourself and your team. If your team is also consistently growing in knowledge and expertise, the results of the company shall change for the better.

Thoughtful Yet Decisive

When a true leader faces challenges, problems, and setbacks, he stops and analyzes the situation carefully. He’s thoughtful, which means that he would rather break the problem into pieces in his own mind and seek the solution before jumping into action. Moreover, thoughtfulness helps leaders detect the roots of their problems in order to find proper solutions.

If a leader is both thoughtful and decisive, he’s going to be efficient at making positive changes. Once they’ve finished thinking about the matter and took into consideration all the options, they immediately start taking action. Even if they don’t have all the knowledge and expertise, they’re using everything they can to move towards their end goal.

Consistent

Consistency is key to the success of any professional organization. There’s big competition everywhere around the corner. In order for a brand or small business to thrive, their branding, operations, sales, marketing, and work must remain consistent. In fact, everyone advises you to take action.

Well, great leaders take enough action, and they do it consistently. Obviously, a leader who manages to make his team work hard on a consistent basis is likely to achieve success faster than those who don’t.

Ability to Deal with Conflict

Conflict is present in every type of organization. Whether it’s a business or a non-profit, people will still get into conflict because of different personal reasons. The leadership figure should be always present and ready to calm the situation down. Every time two or more people argue, the performance of the company will slowly drop.

Great leaders are good at dealing with conflict. They do their best to understand their team members on an individual level, so they can approach the different conflict situations in the most appropriate ways.

Conflict management is a skill which you develop by learning human psychology but also by paying very close attention to your employee's behavior. Nevertheless, you should intervene only when the situation requires it. Many times, it’s best to let people sort things out. Step in just if the situation degenerates!

Great Communication Skills

In most of the situations, the growth of a company is dependent on the leader’s communication skills. Obviously, every leader can undertake different responsibilities, but generally, they all need one important quality to thrive. Communication skills happen to be one of the most important traits of a contemporary leader.

In order to develop an effective professional relationship with other clients, you need to know how to negotiate and seek the best out of a deal. Moreover, you need to be able to listen and speak when the situation requires it. You should learn how to build personal rapport by imitating other people’s tone of voice, body language, and words.

There are many communication tricks that’ll make a big difference in the way you fuse your relationships and deals. Moreover, if you’re a great communicator, your employees will come to you whenever they encounter problems because they know you’re the one who can truly help.

Trustworthy

The relationship between a leader and his followers is shaped by several important things. First off, the leader must demonstrate competence, otherwise, people would not follow. In most cases, competence signifies skills, and all employees need to feel that their leader is able to put his ideas into action and turn dreams into reality.

Finally, the leader will establish trust among his team members when he manages to display the fact that “he knows what he’s doing”. Moreover, the character of the leader also matters. If you keep your commitments and take action every time you promise to do so, you’ll look like a “doer” instead of a talker.

To look even more trustworthy, you should treat your employees with a lot of care. That means you should always listen to their problems, help with your genuine answer, and hold small secrets whenever you’re asked. Bond with people on a personal level and you’ll earn their trust in a matter of weeks!
 
Fearless

Here’s a quote by one of the most powerful leaders of all times, Winston Churchill:
“Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.”

Take his word for granted and come to the realization that courage is a super force that allows us to crush our limitations and step into new boundaries. As a leader, being courageous means to be willing to take risks…and I’m talking about lots of risks. In fact, leadership is a risk itself because you cannot guarantee whether your future decisions will be constructive or damaging.

So even if your risks are calculated, you still get no assurance that your actions will generate the desired results. This is an aspect that you’ll have to deal with if you want to be a great leader. Certainty is a luxury. Those who can perceive it this way will gain many benefits, as they’ll become fearless when faced with the often risky future.

Truly Responsible

True leaders assume full responsibility for their lives and actions. They’re the one responsible for everything that happens to them, as they understand that every cause has an effect and that no human being can undermine this rule and principle that governs our natural law.

Personal responsibility is a critical trait that every leader must possess in order for his life and business to flourish. Whenever problems arise, responsible leaders quickly acknowledge the problem and they begin analyzing it with care. They seek the solutions instead of agonizing over the problems.

Most importantly, true leaders never put the blame on others. They never criticize unless there’s a very good reason for the critics to be made, and they always remain genuine. They hold their integrity and never cheat or lie while trying to climb the ladder to success.

Resilient
 
A resilient leader is patient, consistent, and persistent. Giving up is never an option among great leaders, and that’s because of their significant levels of resilience. Ever person fails a lot of times throughout life. The difference lies in how each individual reacts to his problems and challenges.

True leaders perceive failure as feedback. Again, the cause-and-effect principle comes into play, dictating the results of all of us. So if your results (effect) are not satisfying, it means that your actions (cause) were not the right move. It means that you need to think of something else, find a solution, and try again.

Long-term success is always a consequence of plenty of tries and failures. If you keep trying, adapting your strategies to your previous feedback, there’s no way to remain stuck with a problem. Take this mentality with you and start using it to strengthen your leadership career.

Conclusion

Every successful leader can be a source of inspiration. If you could only borrow one good quality from each famous leader, well, you’d turn into a superhuman. Each of us excels at different things. We’re different, and we will never be “fully complete”. You cannot achieve perfection. That’s impossible.

What you can do, though, is give your 100% to everything you do. Stay consistent, growth-oriented, and take action as much as you can. Every skill is improveable as long as you put your thoughts, feelings, and action into one place, creating harmony, prosperity, and results.