World’s Best Boss – 5 Behaviors Displayed By All Good Leaders

There’s a huge difference between a manager and a true leader. One is a mere title, while the other is an identity earned through the development of leadership qualities. If you’d like your position to be more than just a formality, the following five traits will be central to your success.

1. Generosity

Whether it takes the form of allowing employees to enjoy a half-day here and there, handing out stylish and thoughtful corporate gifts for a job well done, or simply taking the time to listen, generosity is one of the most important qualities a leader can develop.

Being generous with information, responsibility, and praise will do wonders for empowering your team. You will find that your kindness spreads, and soon, everyone will be naturally more inclined to help each other out, giving back to the team and the company as a whole.

2. Leading by example

If you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. Fail to do this, and you will quickly lose the trust of your employees. Any behaviors you want to see your team members develop must first be fostered in yourself. If a time comes when you need people to dedicate extra hours to get a project done, you need to be there in the trenches with them. Showing that you hold yourself to the same standards that you expect of others is the best way to encourage trust and hard work.

3. Trust

Speaking of trust, if you don’t trust your team, you’re setting them up for failure. To ensure that your trust does good things, you need to have a recruitment strategy that allows you to be confident that you’ve hired the best of the best.

Once you’ve invited someone into the team, you must trust them in order to foster a positive environment. This means accepting responsibility for setbacks, acknowledging important contributions, and giving credit where it’s due. If you share praise and hold yourself accountable, your staff will be more inclined to follow suit.

4. Egalitarianism

Treating everyone in your team fairly is a cornerstone of quality leadership. Everyone should be held to the same standards, yourself included. There cannot be rules of conduct for the customer service team that the sales team gets to ignore. If you really want to push egalitarianism to new heights, get everyone involved in the creation of the rules and standards you’ll all be living by.

If you already have your workplace code of conduct, roles, and responsibilities set in stone, be sure your expectations are clear and reasonable. This will foster a stress-free environment in which everyone knows what’s expected of them and feels like an equal.

5. Consistency

Inconsistency is one of the strongest signs of poor leadership. If you’re happily greeting everyone one day and yelling at people the next, they won’t know what to expect and will have no idea how to conduct themselves at work. Even if you’re not engaging in wild mood swings, inconsistency in your attitudes, actions and decisions will create an atmosphere of uncertainty that people can only tolerate for so long.

Be clear in your own goals, share your expectations with the team, and provide them with the unwavering support they need to be high achievers. This way, even when times get tough, everyone will have a solid guiding force to get them through.

Powerful leaders are endowed with many great qualities, and there’s no end to the path of personal growth all effective managers must go down. Start by fostering the traits listed above, and you’ll have a solid foundation from which to work.