Becoming a Leader: 6 Key Traits for Inspiring a Team

Not everyone is a natural-born leader. Many of us find ourselves in leadership roles, however, often without sufficient training to manage a team effectively. You could be a team leader in a supermarket or a CEO of a multi-million-dollar company, but the essence and finesse required to be a leader remains the same.

If you’ve ever worked for a company (yes, any company) you’re more than likely to have met a boss that you hated and just couldn’t get along with. No people skills? Approaching and dealing with situations in the wrong way? Being unprofessional in the workplace? Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for bosses to be like this in workplaces around the world. So you don’t fall into the same trap, here is a list of tips and tricks to becoming the best leader you can be.

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Becoming a Leader: 6 Key Traits for Inspiring a Team

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have a positive attitude

One of the most important aspects of being a leader is to be positive. Your team will look up to you, and when you approach a difficult or challenging situation, they’re going to be looking at you to see how to move forward. If you’re sighing and throwing a strop because you don’t want to do the job, imagine how this will impact your team.

Enthusiasm is also an extremely important trait for an inspiring leader to have. Showing your team that you have a passion for the tasks or challenges you’re attempting to tackle is bound to rub off, automatically driving your team to the same levels of excitement.

Show your appreciation

Not everybody goes to work to get the paycheck. Job satisfaction is a huge element of the modern-day workplace, and there’s no greater feeling in or out of work than feeling appreciated. If someone in your team has excelled in their tasks, make their day by letting them know how much you appreciate them working hard.

Be forward-thinking

Inspiring leaders have a vision for the future. You may be leading a boy scout troupe or a digital marketing company; your team is designed to achieve a set outcome or to complete a certain task. This means that as the leader you should have a clear understanding and vision of what this success looks like, as well as ideas and shorter-term targets to achieve it. By thinking about the future, you can keep your eyes on the prize and your team members on the same track.

Don't just talk; listen

As a leader, you may be in charge of doing a lot of the thinking and speaking with your team members. However, listening is just as important a skill to master. Listening coherently to your teammates will enable you to explore new ideas and effectively address problems that you may have overlooked.

Learn the art of communicating

Listening and speaking, it all comes under the same umbrella. If you cannot communicate effectively with your team, the team is doomed to fail from the start. When addressing your team you need to ensure that the message you’re trying to communicate is clear, and that everybody understands what’s going on in the most detail possible. If you fail to do this, then your entire team will end up falling apart, and your goals won’t be achieved.

Respect the team

This is more of an umbrella term for several traits a successful leader should possess. These personality traits including things like being trustworthy. This means not stepping on anybody to get to the top or lying to your team to try to manipulate a certain outcome. If you’re honest with your team from day one, there’s no reason why they won’t give you 100%.