What Should You Look For In Potentional Leaders? (Episode 49)

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Transcript

What should you look for in potential leaders for your organization or team?

In general, having strong leaders on your team and throughout your organization just helps your team and organization run well. So, what should you look for in potential leaders?

Well, first we need to make sure we understand that leadership isn’t some magical gift that some people have, that some people have it, some people don’t, and you’re just looking for those magic people who have that gift.

That’s not leadership. That’s not what it is. Leadership is just a skill, and it’s made up of other skills and behaviors that you do that make you an effective leader.

So when you’re looking for people, you’re looking for people who have those skills, those behaviors that are pointing them toward leadership. Now anybody can learn those, but you’re looking for people who are already exhibiting some of those behaviors.

And if others who come along want to become leaders, you can explain that these are the behaviors you’re looking for so they can start developing those.

They are people of integrity whom you trust

First thing you want to look for is trust and integrity. You want someone you can trust. If you can’t trust them, why would you want them in a leadership position?

Trust is foundational for leadership, and it’s a core factor of building influence with people, and leadership is built off influence.

So, when you’re looking for people, you want people that you can trust, that tell the truth, who don’t talk about people behind their back, who are reliable, who when they say they’re going to do something, they do it, who are ethical and moral and don’t take shortcuts just because they think no one’s looking or because it’s easier. They are people who do what’s right even when it’s hard.

Those are the kind of people you want to be leaders.

They have influence with others

Second, do they have influence with other people? Again, influence is foundational for leadership. Do others respect them? Do others trust them? Do they help other people win? Have they built relationships with other people?

Now, this in no way says someone needs to be an extrovert to be a leader, but they need to have those relationships and building influence with other people if they want to be an effective leader.

About serving the team over themselves

Third, you want someone who’s about serving the team and mission over themselves. When people see them, they know they’re about helping them and they’re about helping the team succeed, not about serving themselves first. This is important because leadership is about service.

As a leader, your job is to serve your team to help them accomplish the mission. If you’re self-seeking, you’re not going to be an effective leader. And that’s a downfall of many leaders today.

They see leadership as a reward, as a perk, as the privileges, and they don’t see it as service, and so it hurts their leadership ability.

Look for someone with a service mindset.

They’re humble and listen well

Fourth, they’re humble and they listen. They’re not egotistical. They’re not arrogant. They don’t think they know all the answers. They don’t think they’re better than other people.

They listen to other people’s ideas. They get input from other people. They’re willing to admit their mistakes when they do wrong. They’re humble and they’re about learning and growing.

They prioritize well

Another thing to look for is someone who can prioritize well. As a leader, part of their job is to look at the big picture and guide their team toward the big picture. And that means prioritizing what’s important and what’s not.

And, as a leader, sometimes you can get crazy busy with things and fighting fires and all this stuff. But if you’re good at prioritizing, if you’re good at being proactive, you can prevent that and prevent burnout and make sure you’re focused on the right task.

So finding someone who can prioritize well could be helpful.

They are driven and show initiative

You also want someone who’s driven and who shows initiative. If someone always does the minimum, they just do only what they’re told, they don’t show any drive or initiative, that’s going to carry over as a leader, and that’s not what you want.

They take ownership and responsibility

Next, you want someone who takes ownership. When a problem or mistake happens, instead of blaming or looking outward, they look at themselves and they take ownership of it. The focus isn’t blame, but on finding solutions and solving the problem. You want that kind of person as a leader.

Other traits to look for

Now, there’s other things you can look for as well, such as being a good critical thinker. That’s important. Being able to solve problems and make decisions, showing trust to others, not feeling they have to control everything or everyone, caring about people and their success and helping them win, being able to handle conflict appropriately and talking to people instead of behind their back, being about the best idea, not their idea, being willing to speak up even when it’s hard, and so on.

But one really important one to look at, too, is do they even want to lead? Sometimes the only way to move up is through management, but sometimes people don’t really want that. They want to continue in the jobs they have, just grow in them.

Those are things to look for in potential leaders. Now, you don’t have to have all of those necessarily. You’re not expecting a perfect leader, but you definitely want the good character traits, and some of those others you may can teach as you go if they have that humble, willing, learning spirit.

Leadership is the determining factor of success and failure on teams and organizations, so you want to make sure you have great leaders.

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