Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Good Leader?

Leadership isn’t all about bossing people around. A good leader knows how to motivate their team and get the best out of each team member in order to achieve the best results. If you’ve been thinking of taking up a leadership position, here are some questions to ask yourself to ensure that you have what it takes.
Are you organised?
Good leaders need to be able to organise their team whilst performing their own duties. Organisation is particularly important if you’re taking on a role of project manager as this post at ICON delves into. All in all, you need to be good at keeping to deadlines and making sure that no detail is missed. If you’re the type of person that loves to keep things in order, you may find that leadership comes naturally.
Are you creative?
Whilst establishing routines is important for staying organised as a leader, having a creative side is also important. This is because leaders are constantly having to solve new problems, which may involve thinking out of the box. This article at Expedite goes more into detail about the importance of creativity in business. This creativity needs to be applied – you must be able to come up ideas and put them into action. At the same time, you need to inspire creativity in your team and be open to their ideas.
Are you patient?
When facing challenges as a leader, you also need to be patient. This is a skill that is often overlooked. In fact, many people think it is a weakness and believe that a good leader needs to be able to act fast and take no nonsense. Whilst decisiveness is important, there are times when being too brash could make your employees and clients view you as lacking empathy. As this article at Industry Week describes, being able to wait things out and give people a second chance can be an important ingredient to long-term success.
Are you a people person?
Leaders are constantly working with people and so it’s important that you enjoy working with people and pleasing them. This may seem obvious, and yet there are many poor leaders out there that don’t really work well with people – they may prefer to command from their office and may find people a distraction, treating them as an inconvenience. All in all, it’s important that you are a part of your team and that you see your subordinates as colleagues and not resources. By keeping a close relationship with your team, you’ll build their trust more and you’ll find they’re more motivated to please you. This post at Aspire further explores the idea of being a ‘people person’.
Are you a positive person?
Negativity will get you nowhere as a leader. You need to be able to believe in yourself, your company and your team. By showing positivity, you’ll inspire your team to also be positive. This doesn’t mean that you should be blinded by positivity to the point that you ignore problems – you need to accept problems. However, you should look for ways to overcome these problems rather than complaining about them.