Shockingly 38% of new leaders fail within the first 18 months in their leadership role. Learning how to be a successful leader is highly valuable to avoid becoming part of the statistics.

If you’ve just landed your first leadership role, you’re probably going through all the emotional highs and lows that come with it. To get a better grasp of your new role you may be looking up to some great famous leaders and others working in your office. While doing so you’ll identify certain personality traits that contribute to their idyllic leader personality. 

A successful leader should create high employee engagement, if you can be engaged in your work and engage others, you’re on the route to success. Statistics show that only 2.6% of management are highly engaged, by building an engaged relationship with your team they will listen to you and value your opinions.

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Wilson Reagan

Personality traits that contribute to being an excellent leader in 2021:

• Flexibility – Having the ability to swiftly modify a style or approach to suit an individual or the task in hand. Employees have different styles of learning or retaining information and feedback, to be a good leader learn their styles and be flexible with your deliverables.

• Empathy –  Understanding the hardship another person may be going through and being able to see how their perception may have changed. Having empathy allows a leader to support employees that may be struggling and have the ability to provide an outcome to develop work improvements.

• Transparency –  Being open and honest with your team, allowing them to understand the trials and tribulations that come along with a leadership role. Sharing the reality with your team will allow them to develop stronger trust and value for you, and break down any out-dated hierarchical barriers. 

• Resilience – Having a positive mindset and a ‘can do’ attitude towards any temporary setbacks. Adopting this attitude can have a positive reflection on your team and their motivation to work through any periods of turbulence. Resilience is especially relevant in a year like 2020 / 2021 where nobody has any clear degree of certainty. 

• Adaptability –  Being able to respond effectively to changes in the business and in wider shifts in society. Developing versatility will allow you to respond to any changing situation and fill your team with trust and confidence. 

While these traits alone don’t summarize leadership as a whole, they go hand in hand with general desired traits and are particularly important for leaders navigating their way in 2021. It may well be that 2021 is not a breath of fresh air we all hoped for, but it is an opportunity to develop your leadership skills. The focus on leadership has never been better, there is a higher demand to successfully overcome challenges and adapt working styles while being cautious of employee well-being.