4 Reliable Traits That Genuinely High-Performing Leaders All Share
The secret sauce of leadership that gets results.
Kaboompics.com | Pexels Humans are sponges. We are primed to absorb information from the world around us, even if we don’t consciously look for it. A powerful element of this is learning from examples.
However, not all examples are created equal. Some people seem legitimate because they talk a good talk and walk a good walk. But they also balk a good balk: at responsibility, at adaptation, and at actually leading a team.
They’re often the ones who have gotten so good at playing the game of corporate politics and management maneuvering that they forgot to focus on being actual leaders. For those of us who want to break the cycle and be a good leader, we need good examples to follow.
Here are 4 reliable traits that genuinely high-performing leaders all share:
1. Self-belief paired with humility
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If you want to be a success at work (or in life generally), you need to believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, why should other people? But left unchecked, strong self-belief can morph into arrogance, delusion, or narcissism.
I like to think belief is more like a kind of mental resilience. Whereas arrogance implies the idea that ‘I’m good at everything,’ self-belief is more ‘I’m not going to let being bad at anything stop me doing or trying it, because that’s how I get better.’
Self-belief partnered with humility is a hat for all weather. A perpetual growth mechanism. A rolling start on life. How do you spot it?
If people speak with conviction, back up their ideas with energy and enthusiasm, and are willing to defend their position but with an open mind, these are signs of belief. And if you’ve seen them change their mind, adapt, or take on board a different perspective, you can feel pretty confident they’re both self-believers and humble, too.
Confidence and humility are often seen as opposites, but great leaders have both. This combination, "confident humility," is a crucial trait of influential leaders, according to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
2. Decisiveness
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The ability to make decisions seems like an odd thing to praise. After all, every day, we all — managers and non-managers alike — face countless decisions that we’re fine with.
We dress ourselves, pick breakfast, order coffee, choose a commute route, lay out our tasks for the day, select topics for small talk, and so on. Nobody expects a pat on the back for picking out their socks, for heaven’s sake.
But what separates the quality managers isn’t that they can make decisions — we all demonstrably can. It’s the kinds of decisions they can make in the kinds of situations they face. There’s this awkward balance between having enough information to make a good decision versus delayi
ng the decision long enough to get the info. And to be honest, a lot of early decisions you’ll need to make will be more like ‘how to make the best of these bad choices’ or ‘how to live with making a sub-optimal decision I won’t realize it is sub-optimal until it’s too late.’
Because you don’t know the true knock-on effects of what you’re doing until you’ve done it a few times and lived through the pain/fear/anxiety/win/loss/opportunity. Some lessons have to be lived to be learned. It’s in this delta between perception and reality that being able to make a decision matters. Stick or twist? Commit or quit?
You can’t do everything. What you do is as much down to what you say no to as what you say yes to. And being able to make decisions is such a critical and effective skill because it resolves the one thing that’s a quick death for a leader: stagnation.
Decisive leaders can make the right decisions at the right time and communicate them clearly and with conviction. They are often more concerned with forward momentum than making perfect decisions, according to a 2023 research by Personalysis. Decisiveness is an essential skill for leaders, especially when managing complex stakeholder relationships. Decisive leaders can steer their companies toward stability and growth, even in uncertain times.
3. The ability to pivot
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The only constant in a leader’s life is change. The company you join isn’t the one you leave. It’s a heaving juggernaut constantly weathered and eroded by the winds of time. A ship of Theseus, each plank replaced daily as you rise and fall with challenges, chances, opportunities, and shenanigans.
It takes a lot of effort to keep things as they are. You can’t just rest on your laurels and hope for the best. Things change. We are forced to in response, or we’ll fall where we stand.
You’ve got to stay mobile. Duck and move, bob and weave. Stay on your tippy-toes and look alive. Because the universe is already gearing up its next swing, and it’s potentially a knockout blow.
Feeling stuck? Lacking energy? Out of ideas? Get moving. Do something. Anything.
An old client of mine wasn’t sure which project to focus on from a choice of two. One was a guaranteed hit but required a lot of time and energy to set up and had a ceiling to the revenue it could generate. The other was quicker and easier to implement but was an unknown quantity with no guarantee of success.
While he was busy making up his mind, the second option disappeared. The moment had passed. A competitor who moved first took full advantage and expanded their business as a result.
In our reflective chat, he tried to claim the universe had decided so it wasn’t meant to be. We explored this thought in detail, and how he abdicated agency when he blamed fate. Because power goes to where you point your finger. Blame the universe, and you might feel better because you can claim it was out of your hands. But that’s not a good thing.
He could have made a choice. And you can learn from bad decisions. But no decision? All he’s learned is he’s unlucky, or it wasn’t his time. But is that true?
So, let’s take a moment to appreciate the do-ers. Those who are rushing in to move the needle. Sometimes they get it wrong. Their exuberance and vitality put them in positions a little thought could have avoided. The lesson here isn’t to be more risk-averse or wait until you’re certain you can move. It’s instead to build a thicker skin and to be more adaptable.
Whatever the ailment, motion is the lotion. Apply generously to the affected area of your life. Leaders with a bias for action are quick thinkers and decision-makers who are not afraid to take calculated risks and act on them. A 2023 article by MentorCruise explains that they are willing to move past research and analysis to get things done.
4. The ability to think like a gymnast, not a sumo wrestler
A 2021 article by the Center for Creative Leadership describes a flexible leader as someone who can adapt their approach and style to fit different situations, readily embracing change and being open to new ideas, allowing them to effectively navigate uncertain or dynamic environments by adjusting plans and strategies as needed. Essentially, they are not rigid in their leadership style and can pivot when necessary to achieve the best outcome for their team.
When you face problems, do you learn to work around them or try to smash through them?
Flexible leaders can change plans to react to the reality of the situations they face. They don’t waste time trying to control everything and instead stay supple and malleable, ready to surf uncertainty and exploit opportunities in the chaos.
Leaders need to be planners. They need to know the direction, set out clear aims, and make sure everyone knows what to do, how to do it, and why. But after that, welcome the flexibility. It promotes options. And you want, as much as possible, to protect your optionality.
The project you start is rarely the project you finish. And a good thing, too. You can’t know it all at the beginning. Sure, you have an idea of where you want to end up. But probably not a fully fleshed-out one.
But flexibility goes beyond just plans. The best leaders adapt to their teams. They adapt to their environment. And they absorb and overcome setbacks.
Surf uncertainty. Learn from your mistakes. Recognize you don’t — and can never — know it all. Reject limiting beliefs. Keep an open mind. And focus on building a core set of skills that increase your general options.
But a word to the wise: don’t be so flexible you’re as solid as a spaghetti flagpole in a typhoon.
You get this by knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing. Think of critical aims or clear outcomes. Then, when you face choices or challenges, you can know if it’s worth adapting or soldiering on.
Tobias is a writer, leadership coach, and corporate executive. His work is featured in Medium and Business Insider and he has been working in leadership for the best part of two decades.