Leadership potential and personal values

¶ … Leadership success [...] common measures and best practices in measuring leadership success. Being a successful leader is more than knowing how to motivate others. A successful leader must be ethical, moral, and exhibit high values, but they must be motivational to their staff members, as well. A good leader is an example to others, but they must be flexible and adapt to changing situations, too.

Good leadership is critical for any organization to function successfully. Measuring leadership success is also essential for any organization's success rate. To measure a good leader, managers must look for adaptability, personality, and ability to accomplish the organization's mission. Other qualities that are essential to excellent leadership include morals, ethics, and extremely high values, and the ability to motivate others.

Ethics and morals are extremely valuable qualities in effective leaders. Leaders represent the organization, and to represent it well, they must be morally and ethically sound. First, if they have high standards, that will translate to their staff members, and they will uphold those ethics and morals. Next, most leaders interact with the company's vendors and customers, and they must represent the highest standards of morals and ethics to gain their trust and win their business. Neither customers nor staff members want to deal with someone who is ethically or morally challenged, so successful leaders must represent the highest standards to others to give credence to the company. They must have a winning personality, as well. Two writers note, "The personality of the leader, coupled with an ability to accomplish the mission, prove critical for success of the organization" (Jerabek & Day, 2009). Staff members do not wish to work with a leader who is aseptic or unfriendly, and customers do not wish to interact with this kind of person, either. A successful leader must have a winning personality, along with high standards to be successful.

An additional theory that could be used to analyze a true leader is adaptability. Another writer notes, "Adaptive leaders learn to live with unpredictability. They spend less time fretting about the inability to establish a routine or control the future and focus more on exploiting opportunities" (Whiffen, 2007). Every organization experiences change, growth, and development. A good leader must be able to adapt to those changes, grow with them, and motivate their team to adapt, as well. The same writer continues, "Once a leader perceives changes in the operating environment, he should identify the 'critical elements of the new situation'" (Whiffen, 2007). This is essential for any organization, no matter the size. Nothing stays static, and new situations are always developing, so leaders must adapt to them, grow, and be open to change.