Effective Leadership Characteristics

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Leadership refers to the capability of an individual to influence others to carry out certain tasks or act in an expected way in order to accomplish a certain objective. Effective leadership is determined by a person's ability to deal with many people and command followership. Exceptional leaders reflect a balance between capabilities, behaviors, and facets of a given situation. The most significant measure of a leader's proficiency is the scope to which the group he or she leads achieves its objectives Aspiring leaders must develop skills aimed at building relationships and improving their listening and communication skills.

The most important mark of an effective leader is clear communication. Exceptional leaders communicate
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Self-awareness involves being cognizant of one's strengths and acknowledging weaknesses. It includes taking ownenship of successes and failures in equal measure. A self-aware leader constantly asks questions aimed at seeking opinion of his performance from others. Additionally, he listens to feedback objectively without defending his actions. The trait boosts a leader's credibility at an interpersonal level and increases personal effectiveness.

An additional hallmark of effective leadership is self-motivation. An exceptional leader has an innate propensity to work and succeed beyond expectations. Such a leader is passionate about his work and constantly seeks innovative ways of doing things rather than maintaining the status quo. Trappings of power and money are not primary incentives for a motivated leader. The desire to exceed expectations and goals is transmissible to followers, especially within a team. A motivated team remains optimistic even when faced with
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Empathy involves listening objectively to the needs of other people in a group and exercising emotional intelligence. Empathy should not be mistaken for sympathy. While sympathy involves making the other person feel better, empathy takes into consideration other compounding factors to a situation. The trait helps to build trust with followers which in turn strengthens relationships and improves productivity. Leaders who truly listen to varied opinions and enable followers to forge forward toward solutions without controlling them are influential and can command commitment easily. This is particularly true in a setting with young workers or followers who do not like working under controlled environments. Empathetic leaders enable followers to recognize how their contributions gel into the bigger picture. The relation to human experience is imperative and the instant a leader loses that e also loses his effectiveness. For example, when a leam is divided leading to ow productivity, an effective leader would intuitively seek to find out where the problem might be. He could encourage open communication in order to understand triggers of frustration and understand the emotional make-up of each team member at a deeper level. The result of such an empathetic action would be increased collaboration and perhaps better performance In order to break through barriers to success, one must seek to uphold an effective

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