7 Personality Traits of a Great Leader

If you want to be a leader who attracts

quality people, the key is to become a

person of quality yourself. Leadership is

the ability to attract someone to the gifts,

skills and opportunities you offer as an

owner, as a manager, as a parent. Jim

Rohn calls leadership the great challenge of

life.

What’s important in leadership is refining

your skills. All great leaders keep working

on themselves until they become effective.

Here’s how:

1. Learn to be strong but not rude. 

It is an extra step you must take to become a

powerful, capable leader with a wide range

of reach. Some people mistake rudeness

for strength. It’s not even a good

substitute.

2. Learn to be kind but not weak. 

We must not mistake kindness for weakness.

Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain

type of strength. We must be kind enough

to tell somebody the truth. We must be

kind enough and considerate enough to lay

it on the line. We must be kind enough to

tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3. Learn to be bold but not a bully.

It takes boldness to win the day. To build

your influence, you’ve got to walk in front

of your group. You’ve got to be willing to

take the first arrow, tackle the first problem,

discover the first sign of trouble.

4. You’ve got to learn to be humble but

not timid. 

You can’t get to the high life by

being timid. Some people mistake timidity

for humility. Humility is almost a God-like

word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder.

An awareness of the human soul and spirit.

An understanding that there is something

unique about the human drama versus the

rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the

distance between us and the stars, yet

having the feeling that we’re part of the

stars. So humility is a virtue, but timidity is

a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can

be cured, but it is a problem.

5. Be proud but not arrogant.

It takes pride

to win the day. It takes pride to build your

ambition . It takes pride in community. It

takes pride in a cause, in accomplishment.

But the key to becoming a good leader is

being proud without being arrogant. In fact,

I believe the worst kind of arrogance is

arrogance from ignorance. It’s when you

don’t know that you don’t know. Now that

kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone

is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that.

But if someone is ignorant and arrogant,

that's just too much to take.

6. Develop humor without folly. That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we

learn that it’s OK to be witty, but not silly.

It’s OK to be fun, but not foolish.

7. Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth.

Save yourself the agony. Just accept life

like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it

tragic, but I’d like to think it’s unique. The

whole drama of life is unique. It’s

fascinating. And I’ve found that the skills

that work well for one leader may not work

at all for another. But the fundamental

skills of leadership can be adapted to work

well for just about everyone: at work, in the

community, and at home.. 

Thank you.

M.Sai Ram