Have you ever been in a situation where you had to hire a leader and struggled to settle on what traits you should chase? And were the qualities you settled on most likely few of these traits: charisma, knowledge of the industry, soft-skills, confidence, and strong recommendations. However, as you conjecture by now, there is more and quite astonishing perspective and art to the selection of leadership traits. Nourished from Harvard Business School methods and several scholars’ researches this article will allow you to exploit these 4 traits you should exceptionally consider in case of recruiting someone to a leadership position.

Intellect outperforms industrial knowledge.

Harvard Business School chooses students not according to their knowledge of business but their intellects. They prefer clever minds and then turn them into talented business leaders.
They train them by encountering various challenges in different industry areas such as medicine, engineering, and construction, etc.
“A truly diverse student body — in background, nationality, interests, and ambitions — is the foundation of the HBS experience. Indeed, these differences are critical to the HBS learning model, which thrives on the many perspectives and life experiences our students from all over the world bring to their classes.” HBS website notes on their website.

Modesty: Humble leaders often are innovative, encouraging and collaborative.

Common sense suggests that hiring over-confident and cocky leaders are the best way to fill the void in your company. However, researches show that humble leaders are more efficient and innovative.
Humble leaders are innovative because they accept their mistakes and look for new efficient ways to overcome them. They encourage a collaborative environment at the workplace and in this way they bring the best out of their colleagues.
Margarita Mayo, Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior, quotes research showing that CEOs with humble characteristics propagate their team’s talent to the highest level. They establish this achievement through creating collaborative environments and cultures, giving thumbs up to others’ strong features, and most importantly accepting their own weaknesses. They endorse innovation because they don’t take their mistakes personally and are willing to apply new ideas and feedback. Humble leaders lead to humble employees.

Leader with a vision

If you hire a leader you should hire a leader with a vision for your company. Harvard Business School recruits teachers only with vision. How? They don’t hire teachers who choose to teach with used-old methods, they prefer teachers who have innovative and more efficient methods of tutoring.
HBS also asks MBA candidates during their interviews about their goals and vision in 7 years. The second question is what they plan to change in the industry they want to work in to see their ability to grow and apply innovative ways of leading.

Introversion makes you win

It is common sense that if you want to lead you have to be outgoing and confident. However according to researches more than half of the leaders who outperform their colleagues are introverts. That does not claim that only introverts are good leaders it means that assuming only extroverts as being good leaders is proven wrong.
What is introversion?
According to Susan Cain, in her article called “The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking”: “The word introvert is not a synonym for hermit or misanthrope… Nor are introverts necessarily shy. Shyness is the fear of social disapproval… while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately,”.

#Leadership #Traits #Azerbaijan