Your skills get you hired, but it’s your character that gets you promoted. The character you have can help you build strong relationships, push you to achieve your goals and give you the confidence to go to the next level, but your character can also hinder you. Some traits will lead others to mistrust or dislike you, some will lead you to focus on problems instead of solutions and other traits will allow you to give up before your end goal has been reached. Think about how much your traits have affected your life up to this point. Have you ever given up when aiming for a goal because you didn’t have the confidence or motivation to finish what you started? Have you ever made a promise to someone and didn’t live up to it? Have you ever gone against your own integrity and felt your reputation was compromised because of it? Have you ever lost a job, friend or loved one due to displaying your challenging character flaws? Chances are if you’re completely honest, you answered yes to at least 2 of those questions. These are all situations in which ‘character’ plays a huge role in your success.
I want to make sure you don’t misunderstand what I mean by success. What I’m talking about is overall LIFE success. I’ve met billionaires who are miserable. They may have successful careers, but can’t hold down a successful relationship. Or they have all the money and toys they desire but are in the worst physical shape and in bad health from being overworked. Success goes beyond how much money you have in your bank account. True Success is being able to say you’re completely happy with every area of your life. But to get to that level of success, you must start by building the type of character that will take you there.
I’ve spent years studying successful leaders to see which traits contributed directly to their success. And what I’ve found is astounding! There are over 20 remarkable traits they tend to have in common.
(Click play to watch Betsy’s TEDx talk on the top skills, traits , and habits of Impactful Leaders)
Here are the top 5 of those traits:
- Confidence. Highly successful leaders believe in themselves and their team’s abilities to get them through obstacles, company changes and the challenges that come with being a leader. Their mindset is not, “what if we can’t manage the new changes?” Instead, their focus is on, “what strengths do I and my team have to get us through these challenges and have us come out ahead of the game?”
- Determination. This is what controls the outcome of any goal because determination contains purpose, intent, perseverance, commitment and the endurance to see things through to the end. When team members feel like giving up, successful leaders step in to push them until end results are met.
- Ability to Embrace Change. Mediocre leaders fear change. Impact leaders embrace it. Successful leaders see change as an opportunity…not a threat. Often times leaders lose the respect of their team members by not being able to embrace new changes within a company. Instead of seeing the opportunities that come with change, they focus on what could be potential threats to their job. Embracing change is about accepting the situation you’re in, assessing what needs to be done and making the most of it along the way.
- Self-Awareness. Highly successful leaders understand that your income growth stems from your personal growth. Companies that offer not only professional development but also personal development, are 3 x more profitable. Personal development helps you become cognizant of the skills, traits, and habits you need to develop in order to be a more successful leader. Leadership assessments are a great start for these programs because they help you become aware of your strengths, weaknesses, and motivations; which in return, helps you lead yourself and others more effectively.
- Integrity. People with integrity are magnetic. Others listen to their opinions and trust their judgments. As a leader, this is a characteristic you can’t afford to live without. Integrity develops trust, earns you respect and helps you have more influence with your team; simply by doing the right thing, even when no one else is looking. (By the way, someone is always looking!) Something to remember, the first few months you lead a new team, people will believe what you say; after that, they believe what you do. That’s why having integrity is so important, and the only person who can hold you accountable to having integrity is YOU.
The traits you develop in life play a major role in your future success as a leader within any organization.
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Betsy Allen-Manning
Leadership Speaker | Best Selling Author | Human Behavior Expert
www.BetsyAllenManning.com
Learn it & Live it:
- Comment below on the traits you admire most in successful people.
- To learn more about developing a leader’s character, get my book, Win With People , where I share keys on how to be more confident and communicate better with others.
- If you received value from this then share it with someone else who can benefit from it as well!
- If you’re looking for more advanced training or are looking for a keynote speaker for your next event, come on over to www.BetsyAllenManning.com and let’s talk about how we can work together.
You’ve learned it, now go live it and make it a great day because you deserve it!
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