Leadership is a very personal quality. To be an effective leader and steer your business in the direction it needs to go,  you must develop and critically monitor your personal traits. These personal traits are not represented by your years of experience in the right industries or jobs, nor is it represented by the professional or technical qualifications that you hold and it is certainly not represented by the clubs or associations you belong to or who you know; non of these aspects make you a better leader.

Your skill and capability as a leader lies in firstly, who you are as a person, the personal traits you possess and your efforts in growing and strengthening the right traits. It secondly lies in understanding what a leader truly does in their business and focusing daily on these tasks.

An excellent leader (that is, someone I prefer to call a ‘worthy leader’ as this term hits the mark) is a person who spends time thinking about and building their character and seeks to do the same with their leadership team members. Building their character does not refer to building an image to portray what you would like to see in the media but rather refers to the very tangible qualities such as wisdom, sincerity, courage and discipline.

If the right traits are built, confidence in and assurance of the leadership will grow and the business will undoubtedly prosper to be extremely successful.

1. Wisdom: to enable you to quickly recognize circumstances in the business environment and lead necessary change expediently.
   

2. Sincerity and Humanity: so that the participants in the business will know you are committed to the visions and strategies expressed, that you will support and reward them in their efforts to achieve the vision and that you understand the effort required of them.
   

3. Courage: to act and take the risks to enable the business to achieve its goals.
   

4. Discipline: to enforce rules within the business in pursuit of the vision.

And as you would expect there are also negative traits that undermine leadership and harm the competitiveness and success of a business. These traits are to be removed when discovered:

1. Recklessness: there is probably no worse set of traits in a leader that that of bravado and overconfidence. Courage must be moderated by wisdom for a business to succeed.
   

2. Cowardice: will only lead to last opportunities. A leader who is scared f failure will not be able to lead a business through change.
   

3. Impulsiveness: can be provoked into rage and will only result in ill-considered decisions with that leader being drawn and led.
   

4. False Pride: a leader with false pride will quickly place their own well-being above that of the business to protect their image and feelings.
   

5. Weak Compassion: resulting in a failure to enforce a strict compliance with the vision, values and purpose of the business will only result in the incapacity to achieve business goals.