From Questions for Leaders:
What is one characteristic that you believe every leader should possess?
There are many characteristics that leaders should possess: honesty; integrity; vision; drive, energy; charisma; the list of desirable traits is long.
Integrity is very important, this is what allows a leader to build trust, and we all know how important trust is in a relationship.
However, if I had to pick the most important characteristic, I would say that humility is number 1.
Humility is the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance, rank, etc.
In ‘Good to Great’ Jim Collins highlights humility as one of the key characteristics which differentiates Level 5 leaders from the rest. With Level 5 being the highest level of Leadership.
I think three great examples of leaders with Humility are Gandhi, Martin Luther King jr, and Nelson Mandela.
What do you think is the most important leadership quality?
Vision…
I like vision too, a great vision goes a long way to inspire and organisation, or even a generation as with JFKs by the end of the decade we will land a man on the moon and bring him back safely 🙂
For me it is honesty, without the trust needed I could not follow a leader. This is in my view the starting point for leadership, so to say the foundation
Uwe, many of these are inter-related honesty, trust integrity. For sure they make the foundation and without them, leadership will no flourish.
Sure, at the end it is the right combination of all those aspects. I just reflected what it makes for me. If I have the feeling I can’t trust, this is just someone who uses me for his own benefits, I don’t trust and I will not see the other maybe good characteristics. Like in a run, if you don’t know where to start, you can be a genius but you don’t make it. 🙂
I agree trust is important and without it Leadership is impossible, so I expect all leaders to have that. The question the I sweat it is on top which makes a good leader great
G
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