Leadership has often been described as the ability to get others to follow willingly. Political, military, business, and religious leaders have been studied throughout history in an effort to identify the traits that contributed to their huge successes.

Is there a common thread? And if so, what are those traits?

I spent years as a leader in military and business organizations, and I have studied leaders from those with whom I have had direct contact to those past and present leaders about whom so much has been documented.

I encountered a number of truly outstanding leaders in the business world who were highly successful and widely respected, and who provided inspiration for organizations to achieve remarkable results. In the military, I encountered Marine Corps officers and non-commissioned officers who had been highly decorated combat leaders for their performance under the most stressful and terrifying conditions imaginable, and whose troops nevertheless followed them into that dark hole of battle. With political and military leaders, I’ve studied the likes of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chester Nimitz, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Douglas MacArthur, among others.

I’ve made it a point to learn about business leaders such as Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Herb Kelleher, Warren Buffett, and more recently, Mark Zuckerberg.

I have identified twelve traits that great leaders seem to demonstrate on a highly consistent basis. Some have strong traits that do not appear on this list and still others sometimes reflect attributes that are less than desirable, perhaps even lamentable, yet who succeed anyway. This list is not meant to be all-inclusive, such that every great leader embodies all twelve attributes. Rather, it is meant as a guide as to what I would consider the commonalities which are shared by many leaders who are clearly exceptional.

Please note that in future articles, I will take each of the twelve traits and elaborate further.

My twelve leadership traits are thus:

1. Ability to Communicate

2. Courage

3. Integrity

4. Discipline

5. Fairness

6. Unselfishness

7. Dependability

8. Vision

9. Assertiveness

10. Professional Competence

11. Judgment

12. Creativity

These are the twelve leadership traits that I have identified among the best of the leaders I have seen and studied.

Are you a leader? If so, how do compare your own self-assessed leadership traits to the above list? If you are preparing for a life of leadership, your possession and embrace of the above twelve traits would not guarantee you career success, since there are no such guarantees, but it would put you in good company.

Very good company, indeed.

All the leadership traits I write about in this series of posts are clearly identifiable in my main character, Conor Rafferty, in my novel That Deadly Space. Find it on Amazon by clicking here.