Leadership qualities

To identify the qualities that mark out an individual as a potential leader, ILM researched the views of 50 HR professionals.  Their unequivocal response was that leadership is about participation and engagement and that possessing the right personal characteristics is paramount.

Motivation

The ability to motivate and inspire others is the most important quality for a leader.  Alongside this, leaders must have emotional intelligence and the ability to deal with people.

Natural leadership

Our research has also found that a natural flair for leadership is an important attribute, alongside trustworthiness, being a natural communicator, possessing vision and being driven and ambitious.

Balance of qualities

The leadership qualities we have described must however be balanced in individuals.  In other words, possessing one trait in abundance does not make up for shortcomings elsewhere.  To be a successful leader, you need a combination of qualities, which combine into a coherent whole.  Leaders:

• are multi-faceted
• are resilient, driven and authentic
• are able to motivate, inspire and empathise
• appear to lead naturally

Skills, knowledge and experience

Of course, leaders need specific knowledge and skills relating to their own field.  But these need to be balanced by a deeper understanding of broader business issues and commercial acumen.  It is clear from ILM’s research that successful leaders are people with broad and deep experience, either in a particular industry or across industries.  In other words, it is important what leaders know and leadership qualities take time to mature.

Dealing with adversity

Success is not the only defining quality of a leader: the ability to deal with difficult and challenging experiences can be key in creating a good leader.  The wisdom and resilience acquired through failure can bring immense insight.  It is important to have had difficult experiences to know how to deal with them and older people have often learnt more this way than their younger counterparts.

Leadership qualities are broad, but the key to successful leadership is to blend characteristics, skills, knowledge and experience in a balanced all-round approach.  Leadership is about skills and knowledge, experience and openness, emotional intelligence, credibility, authenticity and trust.  ILM believes even those individuals who are ‘natural leaders’ must build on their innate qualities, by gaining experience, and developing skills and knowledge, on their journey to becoming a complete leader.