12 Essential Qualities of Effective Leadership

A good leader should have integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, compassion, and resilience. They should be learning agile and flex their influence while communicating the vision, showing gratitude, and collaborating effectively. See how these key leadership qualities can be learned and improved at all levels of your organization.

Leaders shape our teams, organizations, communities, and world.

We need good leaders to help guide us and make the essential decisions, big and small, that keep things moving forward.

Our society is usually quick to identify a bad leader, but how can you identify a good one? What would most people say are the qualities of a good leader?

What Good Leadership Looks Like

Based upon our decades of research and experience working with leaders at thousands of organizations around the world, we’ve found that the best leaders consistently possess certain fundamental qualities and skills. Here are 12 essential leadership traits.

  1. Self-Awareness
  2. Respect
  3. Compassion
  4. Vision
  5. Communication
  6. Learning Agility
  7. Collaboration
  8. Influence
  9. Integrity
  10. Courage
  11. Gratitude
  12. Resilience