What Makes a Good Leader?

Written by Salina Milana

Before I started writing this blog, I had a random thought. I was going to title this blog “How to Become a Leader” but then I started to question what actually makes a good leader in the first place. Personally, I feel like if you look at great leaders and start to emanate their good traits, you can naturally start becoming one without even realizing it.

To back track a little, I was on my way to work this morning and I had the radio on a completely random station. What was playing was an interview of a President of a company. I didn’t catch the name of the company or the President, but the interview kept getting better as I listened to it. The interviewer was asking the President how he went about leading his company to success. He explained something along the lines of “…being in a leader position, I never saw myself as higher or greater than anyone else. I just had a different role. When I gave my employees a project, I told them it was a ‘we’ thing not a ‘you’ thing because I was just as dependent on their success as they were dependent on my success.”

To me, this idea was moving. The idea that someone in the important role of a leader has the humility to put himself next to his employees and work with them. This shows not only humility but also compassion and empathy for his team. I think these are some of the most important traits of a leader and it makes people much more apt to trust and respect that leader.