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How to Develop Effective Leadership Qualities & Become An Inspiring Leader

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Boss having a team meeting with employees

Whether at home or in the workplace, leaders aim to help those around them achieve more than they could alone. Part of becoming a more effective leader is continuously developing to grow yourself and your team. If that sounds daunting, don’t worry. There are a number of tried-and-true strategies and tactics you can start implementing easily if you would like to learn how to develop leadership qualities and become an effective, inspiring leader.

A McKinsey study surveyed nearly 200,000 individuals across 81 organizations and analyzed academic literature to understand what leadership effectiveness looks like in multiple contexts. They found four different behaviors that “account for 89 percent of leadership effectiveness.” These are:

Great leadership that breeds success is based on vision, emotional intelligence, adaptability and the ability to be a lifelong learner.

Think about it: all of the behaviors McKinsey identified require leaders to self-reflect. We can’t be supportive without being intentional about our actions. We can’t work towards results without thinking about our goals. We can’t examine new perspectives without thinking about new ideas. And we can’t solve problems without probing them ourselves.

In the words of the world-famous leader, John C. Maxwell, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

Before looking at how to develop as a leader, it’s important to recognize the distinction between leadership skills and leadership qualities. Leadership skills are abilities such as efficient decision-making, critical thinking, and being able to communicate clearly and plan ahead.

Leadership qualities are traits or characteristics of a leader that help them guide teams effectively. Think of them as “professional virtues” in a sense. Examples of leadership qualities might include optimism, perseverance, integrity, confidence or personability.

Even though leadership qualities are more foundational than skills—meaning your skills in the workplace are a reflection of your qualities—the relationship between the two isn’t black and white. For instance, becoming a leader who has integrity might mean improving a skill like reflecting on the moral implications of your actions. Developing a quality and developing a skill can sometimes be the same—though not always.

The Importance Of Leadership Development

Hard skills and education can only take you so far in your career. Strong leadership qualities like integrity, perseverance, respect, and self-awareness deeply impact the work performance of other team members.

Beyond the professional sphere, strong leadership qualities can lead to personal success. I’m a parent of two young children. When I’ve worked on becoming a more self-aware and empathetic leader, my kids respond positively. The same applies to the workplace. When businesses have effective leaders at the helm of departments, productivity and overall employee well-being can improve.

Now that we’ve explained what effective leadership is, here are some key leadership qualities for success that competent leaders focus on developing in themselves:

Regardless of where you are in your leadership journey, you can develop your leadership qualities every day. Growing your character comes from learning from others and from putting yourself in situations to grow.

Here are some leadership development tips you can implement immediately.

Asking for constructive feedback from your boss, peers or team members you supervise helps you identify areas for growth. These areas give you a starting point so you know which qualities to hone first. From there you can create a plan of action to focus on building those leadership characteristics that will benefit your organization the most.

Journaling and acknowledging your feelings in the moment are ways leaders can become more self-aware. Another way is to ask yourself questions about your leadership identity: how you view yourself as a leader. Here are some examples:

Leadership training for professionals doesn’t have to be a one-size-fits-all approach. If you’re looking to learn you can attend workshops in your area, study leadership books or get advice from mentors.

Brian Wallace, founder of the infographic design agency NowSourcing and longtime mentor, is a major advocate of leadership mentoring. Not just because it helps new hires become stellar employees, but also because the act of mentoring creates important leadership qualities in veteran team members, too.

“I think part of what makes somebody sharp is not just learning things, but telling over and instructing and mentoring people that are in a stage where they could benefit from the sum total of what we’ve learned over the years,” says Wallace. On top of that, mentors that work with a good mentee have the privilege of being challenged and having “very fun, active conversations” that develop into a lifelong relationship, he adds.

Wallace reiterates that mentorship is a plus on either side of the relationship. Mentees who, “develop a relationship with someone that maybe you could see yourself in their position [in the future],” have the profound experience of having someone guide them on a career path with less chance of making the same mistakes their mentor did.

That’s a winning formula for developing lasting character traits that continue to pay off well into your leadership career.

One of the best ways to develop leadership qualities is to see how profound leadership looks in action.

On December 1, 1955, during segregation in Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the “colored zone” of a bus to a white passenger. By not following the bus driver’s order, Parks lost her job and was arrested. However, her counter-cultural choice fanned the civil rights movement into flame and she became a major force—and international icon—for Black people everywhere.

Parks didn’t just lead through speech, she started by leading with her own steps. She started by having profound integrity to motivate and guide others.

Sheryl Sandberg served as the COO of Meta (formerly Facebook) from 2008 until fall 2022. During that time, she wrote the bestselling book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, which encouraged women to become corporate changemakers. By leaning into her leadership qualities of empathy and self-awareness, Sandberg shares her own experiences with other women to inspire them forward.

Hauwa Ojeifo is the founder of She Writes Woman, a blog focused on mental health awareness based out of Nigeria. From that came the development of a free, 24/7 hotline and online and community-focused support centers to help Nigerians with their mental health struggles.

What’s powerful about Ojeifo’s story is her choice to persevere through devastating circumstances and use her story to uplift others. After being in an abusive relationship and having struggles with bipolar disorder and suicidal ideation, Ojeifo had the profound self-awareness to realize she needed to speak out about her struggles. That led to her developing into one of the foremost mental health leaders and advocates in her country. In 2020, she became the first person who openly discussed their mental health condition to testify before the Nigerian National Assembly regarding the public reading of a bill on mental health.

An explorer and adventurer, Ernest Shackleton is best known for his Antarctic expedition in 1914 aboard the ship Endurance. On this voyage, he and his crew set out to cross the Antarctic from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. However, his ship was dead-locked in the vast expanses of ice in 1915. He chose to persevere in extreme circumstances and lead his crew to camp on the unforgiving Antarctic ice to hopefully drift towards the nearest land masses.

As a result of his courage, quick thinking and perseverance despite all odds, Shackleton miraculously made sure all 28 of his crewmen were rescued. As Royal Museum Greenwich puts it, “All the men believed that their survival was due largely to his tremendous leadership.”

Becoming the best version of yourself may mean developing your leadership qualities and inspiring others consistently. By following simple strategies like asking your team for feedback, learning how to understand yourself and investing in continuous learning, you can, piece by piece, become the leader you were meant to be. Just work on one leadership quality at a time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Photo courtesy of Ground Picture/Shutterstock

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