Who is your favorite leader? What traits does that person have? Are you a leader? Whether you are a brick-and-mortar agency owner, the owner of your own independent travel business, a business development manager (BDM), the coach of your child’s Little League team, or a parent, you have the opportunity to be an individual who provides trust, direction, and stability and will help others grow.
So what traits and skills do you need to enhance your own leadership? Being a leader doesn’t happen overnight; it takes time and finetuning. To continue enhancing your leadership skills, take a close look at The Travel Institute’s Certified Travel Industry Executive (CTIE) Certification Program.
In the meantime, here are traits that allow some individuals to be followable leaders:
- Competence: Competent leaders know how to do their jobs well. They are rational, and they base their decisions on data and facts. They have good business and financial sense and keep their egos in check. Leaders have vast, accurate knowledge of their job and of their organization, and they know what the organization needs to succeed. And they provide good insights based on their experience.
- Goodwill: Leaders who possess goodwill are people-oriented, can communicate well and find value in others. They genuinely want others to succeed. They enjoy people and are happy to be excellent resources. They want to guide and serve their people—not the other way around.
- Integrity: Leaders with integrity are trustworthy, dependable, and consistent. They do what they say they’re going to do. They are fair and always apply the same rules to everyone without picking favorites. They have high moral principles and are sincere and honest. They are good people with good values. They always do the right thing, and they lead by example.
You also should consider the requisite skills to be a leader whom people want to follow. They include:
- The ability to guide and sustain the organization: Leaders must know—and their actions must reflect—their organization’s mission, vision, and values. Leaders discuss them with their followers and base all decisions on these concepts. They constantly seek to be innovative and agile and to improve the processes used in their organizations.
- The ability to communicate well with followers: Leaders get to know their followers’ personalities, interests, strengths, and weaknesses. They motivate and inspire by regularly offering praise and recognition. They readily give—and receive—candid and sincere feedback, and they strive to provide clear and concise direction to keep all the followers moving in the direction that benefits the organization. They also must be willing to just shut up and listen from time to time.
- The ability to encourage high performance: Leaders must clearly explain goals and objectives so their followers will have a firm grasp on what they should be doing. Leaders must follow up and guide, if necessary. They also must have a reasonable system of reward and punishment based on performance. And they should regularly give performance evaluations that include feedback. People cannot improve unless they know what they are doing wrong. Likewise, followers who exceed expectations will not continue to do so unless they receive praise or recognition for their accomplishments.
If you have these traits and want to acquire these skills, you can become a followable leader.
Today’s Hot Tip Tuesday was taken from the Becoming an Excellent Leader module in The Travel Institute’s Certified Travel Industry Executive (CTIE) program. Be on the lookout for some exciting Tuition Assistance news starting June 27, 2022.
