There have been many remarkable leaders who have done remarkable things throughout history. As different as they were and are, a majority of them have these seven traits in common:

1. An Ethical Code

People will not follow someone they cannot trust. And someone is always watching you. Simple!

2. A Good Judgement

This is not something that people could be taught. You are either born with it or it comes with experience – but it is very important.

3. Networking & Dealing With People

It becomes increasingly essential as people move up in the hierarchy of Leadership. Leaders at high levels generally tend to fail due to an inability to deal with people.

If you are a leader, no one person – even the one at the top – could have an explosive impact on their own. The only impact they would have is in terms of motivating others or trying to have leverage through what others do. And so a leader really must be good at dealing with people.

4. The Right Skills

At the lower levels, most of the failures are generally due to a lack of skills. For example: if someone works as a Social Media Specialist but cannot open a Twitter account – they clearly lack skills and are false leaders.

5. Boosting-Morales

Unfortunately, most company leaders do not do enough to inspire their workers. Do you have a sense of where you want to go? Could you share that vision with others and inspire them? Do you have the kind of authentic stories that could give people goosebumps? It is essential to keep your team motivated.

6. Optimism

A good leader takes advantage of opportunities that come along. In that regard I would say “Do everything you do as if it was the last thing you were doing.” Endeavour being number one in all that you do.

Do a lot of preparation, but do not try to have each step planned out. Avoid getting trapped in worrying about the future, or with questions such as “How will I get ahead?” If you do a good job and focus – the next step will take care of itself.

If you are always the type of person who worries, you tend to trip on the current job at hand, not do that well, and that is destructive.

7. An Internal-Flame

If you fail at something, stand back up, analyse what you did wrong, then try again. The world could be a tough place at times – quitting doesn’t help. Most successful leaders have failed at their first try – failures eventually lead to success!

Written by: Derin Cag