Is Leadership influenced from our personality?

This is a crucial question that all Leaders should analyze for being able to Lead with Purpose, Passion, Empathy and Authenticity by following their Values.

But let’s first analyze what is Leadership?

Leadership is about Inspiring, Energizing & Motivating people towards

shared goals by facilitating Direction, Alignment, and Commitment in people despite major obstacles by considering people’s Needs, Emotions and Values.

Why is it Important?

Is important that as a Leader you should create followers by communicating the context for developing new leaders that will move forward.

You need leaders for facing adversity, for overcoming challenges and not problems and to exploit & explore with a productive way new opportunities in a VUCA environment that an organization should operate.

Leadership is a Practicable, Learnable skill that you can learn and if you practice it very often you will become better & better. Is like going to the gym and practicing a sport. As you practice more & more you will become better & better.

Real Leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones.  We do not want people like us. We want to have in our team’s people that can take our place in some years from now. For being able to educate, inspire, motivate, and guide new leaders, you should know your personality by leaving a continuous self-development journey that can drive you to a Growth MindSet instead of a Fixed one.

The main elements that characterize and develop Leader’s Personality are the meaning of Purpose, Values, Capabilities (Strengths & Weaknesses), Motivations (Intrinsic or Extrinsic), Ethical boundaries and Characteristics of leader.

We live in a VUCA environment with continuous challenges and unforeseen moments. For being able to face today’s challenges you should have done your homework by understanding & knowing who you are, what you stand for, why you exist, why you do what you do, how you work, what are your values, what are your red lines.

For discovering yourself you should analyze a) your life journey, b) which were the crucible moments and what you learn & experienced from them and c) to discover your purpose & meaning in your life.  By analyzing & discovering yourself you will be able to enhance your self-awareness, discover your values, find your motivations & capabilities, and live a balanced life.

By connecting the dots between past, present, and future you can find your Purpose that will shine in the challenging & crucible moments of your life. Purpose is the essence of who you are and what you can bring to a situation. It has been leading through all your life, but you just do not know it.  It is your leading light and beacon of where your “leading is leading too by choosing the hard right from the easy wrong” (D.Craig). By defining your Purpose your colleagues & partners know who you are, what you will not accept, and how they can support you.  Purpose should be specific and be reasonable to you and you alone.

The most challenging task for a Leader is to lead his/herself by developing self – awareness for being able afterward to lead others. By accepting your shadow & light aspects of yourself you can understand who you are, you can have a deep understanding of your emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs & motives. People with self-awareness are honest with themselves and with others, they understand how their feelings affect them & others, and how emotions affect their job performance. It will assist to understand each person’s personal values. By that you will know where you are heading and why. By self-awareness you will be honest & authentic firstly with yourself but with others too. It will boost your self-confidence and will help your performance and your organization performance.

Thus, it can be said that leadership & personality of the leader are two elements that are interconnected and should be analyzed thoroughly & carefully. Sometimes leaders accept jobs that are not ready to hold as their personality & character are not so clear to them which will lead them to stay lonely, deny their fears, shutting down to themselves because they are afraid to fail.  

Leaders in our days, should be aware what leadership means about them and what personality and character they have. Purpose & Self-Awareness are crucial as they will influence not only the leader’s efficiency & effectiveness but its organizations too.