Leadership qualities, what does it take?

Over the last 10 years, ever since my PhD classes, we have a philosophical discussion on what does it take to be a leader? Well, a group of 30 of us from our MBA to our PhD had this short list. It was sort of like this I cannot remember the exact list but this will suffice until I find it.

 
1. Discipline and sheer dedication
2. Good communication skills
3. Decision making
4. Valuing his/her team
5. Integrity

 

Source: Topprnotes bring excellence to students, : By Preyal Prajapati on August 21, 2018

 

Let's go over that list. Is it sorted? Is it prioritized? This is not an endorsement. Just the first I googled to find one with 5 instead of 10 or 50 traits and characteristics. If there was a list of 3 (rule of 3), I would probably review and use it if appropriately correct and on point.

 

First of all most of my class argued that "communication" was #1 priority while I pitched "leadership traits" was #1. In order to communicate, one must know all the who, what, when, where, why and how to communicate. Those are found in leadership traits. Then the communication comes in as #2. Well, I lost out on that vote, aka group think which is a terrible method for democracy.

 

Remember, democratic input is not a necessarily subject to a vote in an organization of any size. While voting can be a popularity contest, it is not by no means a replacement for true decision making and leadership. Sometimes, the majority is best served by a true VETO and overruling feature because not everyone knows everything that is going on in public and behind closed doors, nor are those usually voting willing to take the risk of caring out the vote and decision. The voting public wants the results, not the work required to get to the results. Winning a position and role is not usually done by popularity vote but because of critical mass has been usually achieved in advance to make a vote seem obvious, and usually long overdue.

 

Each of these items in this list I will come to further discuss in our Vlogging (VLOG) and/or here shortly.

 

other sources may apply, but not quite sure:

https://blog.taskque.com/characteristics-good-leaders/

https://career.guru99.com/top-50-leadership-interview-questions/

 

i really wish i could find my MBA/Technology Management, and my DM/PhD in Organizational Leadership papers on this subject. oh well, maybe soon. I only did 3 post-grad classes and residency in my DM/PhD and had to stop because my employer said I could not do full time work and a PhD at the same time (ironic, i worked full time at a University, probably because it was not at their University, but an online competitor).

 

more to come...   check out more on our VLOG @  https://bit.ly/2EhxyoM