When you’re leading individuals, you need to expect certain qualities from them. These are the qualities you looked for and hired because of.
The qualities of an individual will also make or break them. Sometimes, their qualities will make or break your organization.
Scary!
That’s why it’s so important to communicate and look for the qualities you desire in an employee. Below are 10 qualities I believe every leader should look for in their people.
10 Qualities Leaders Should Expect From Their Team
1. Positive Attitude:
A positive attitude goes a long way. Although they may not be able to do everything great, they can do everything better with a positive attitude.
Look for and expect a positive attitude more often than not from those you lead.
2. Involvement:
The people you have on your team should be involved. Their involvement will help your organization grow and thrive when others are wilting.
Bring on people looking to be involved in the going-ons of your organization.
3. What they were hired to do:
This one seems like a no-brainer, but sometimes leaders forget why they hired someone. If they don’t have the qualities of or desire to do what they were hired to do, it may be time to look for someone new.
4. Communication:
Many issues arise because people are not good communicators. When looking for people, consider the quality of their communication.
If it’s poor now, it’ll be poor later on unless they want to improve themselves. If it’s great now, there’s a good possibility they worked on this quality and cultivated great communication skills.
5. Problem solving:
“But I don’t know what to do… I don’t know what’s wrong… I don’t know how to fix it…” Those are not things a leader wants to hear. Yet, we hear them far too often.
Why? Because people lack problem-solving skills.
Look for people who are natural-born problem solvers. They see a problem and find a way to fix it.
Problem-solvers will rise to the challenge.
6. Ambition:
Ambition is the desire for some type of achievement or distinction. In organizations, this could look like a person going above and beyond, aspirations of becoming a new leader or yearning for more.
The quality of ambition brings about its own set of challenges, but it also introduces a go-getter attitude. Ambitious people don’t wait around to be told what to do. They see a problem; they fix it.
7. Respect (For others and themselves):
If you’ve been in an organization where someone doesn’t respect others on your team, you know how much this interferes with getting things done. A lack of respect can destroy the ambition of the other people on the team.
Make sure you’re looking for people who have respect for others.
Remember, you also want to find people who respect themselves. If they don’t care about their own well-being, they won’t care for others.
8. Openness:
You’ve had team members who were closed off. They came in, shut the door, and did their work. Yet, there wasn’t openness to what they were doing. Everything was a secret.
You don’t want that. You can’t have that on your team.
Look for people who are willing to be open.
9. Innovation:
Innovation lags when people don’t have the quality or characteristics of innovation. Innovators are always looking for ways to improve processes and actions.
Look for innovators. You won’t find Tony Stark, but you will find people who are willing to ensure things are constantly improving.
10. Integrity/Character:
I saved integrity/character for the last quality not because it’s the least important but because it’s the most important quality a leader needs to look for in their people. You have to have people with integrity on your team.
Integrity means they do the right thing, even when it’s challenging. They’re willing to go above and beyond because they know it will help someone else.
Find people of character and integrity. Bring them onto your team. They’re worth it.
