What Makes a Great Leader?

Dec 9, 2024

As technology reshapes industries, global challenges demand innovative solutions, and new generations enter the workforce with different expectations, the very nature of what it means to lead is transforming. This shift requires a deeper understanding of great leadership—one that goes beyond conventional wisdom and explores how truly outstanding leaders navigate the intricate dynamics of influence, decision-making, and organizational culture in our complex, interconnected world.

Now more than ever, great leaders are those who can adapt quickly, think globally, and inspire collective action to meet unprecedented opportunities.

What is Great Leadership?

Great leadership isn’t defined by how you wield power. It’s how you inspire, direct, and empower others toward shared goals. It’s about integrating vision, interpersonal skills, and ethical strength to enable your team to overcome challenges, spark innovation, and drive meaningful change.

Ultimately, leadership is about influence—leading by example and inspiration rather than by force. Effective leaders build trust, act with integrity, and create environments where others can thrive. They balance confidence with humility, decisiveness with openness, and big-picture thinking with hands-on execution.

Adaptability and emotional intelligence are key. The best leaders adapt their approach to the situation, knowing when to take the reins and when to step back. They understand their own emotions and those of their team, which helps them build strong relationships, manage conflict, and foster a positive culture.

What’s more, great leadership is impactful. More than just hitting targets, great leaders create a legacy that elevates people, organizations, and communities. By nurturing talent, driving progress, and championing causes, you can leave a mark that resonates with everyone you engage with and beyond.

Why Great Leadership Matters

Great leadership is often the difference between good and exceptional performance.

As a leader, your influence can shape your entire organization, setting the tone for values, strategic direction, and daily operations. You can create an environment where creativity thrives, people feel valued, and challenges are seen as opportunities for growth.
At the team level, great leadership can instill a shared sense of purpose that pushes members beyond their perceived limits. By aligning diverse talents toward common goals and transforming conflict into collaboration, you can build a cohesive, high-performing team.
Individually, your ability to inspire personal growth, deepen engagement, and unlock potential can play a critical role. Great leaders don’t just manage people; they empower them to achieve more than they ever thought possible.

But your impact doesn’t end with your organization. Great leaders can be powerful agents of change, championing causes, inspiring collective action, and guiding their communities toward a better future.

Leadership and Vision

A compelling vision is one of the cornerstones of great leadership. More than imagining a future, it’s communicating it in a way that inspires others to join you in making it a reality. An effective vision:

provides direction, aligning efforts throughout the organization;
motivates and engages, connects daily work to a meaningful, larger purpose;
guides decision-making, serving as a reference point for evaluating strategies and actions;
inspires innovation, stimulating creative thinking to overcome challenges; and
builds resilience, helping teams persevere through adversity.

As a leader, your ability to effectively communicate your vision is vital. By framing a narrative that resonates with diverse audiences, you make the vision tangible and relatable, allowing others to recognize the importance of their personal contributions to its success.

Understanding Your Leadership Style

Your leadership style is the unique approach you take to managing, planning, and motivating your team. While there are many ways to categorize these styles, the most effective leaders adapt their approach to the needs of their team and the situation at hand.

Some of the most common leadership styles include:

Autocratic — Centralized decision-making with clear direction
Democratic — Collaborative decision-making with team input
Transformational — Inspiring change and fostering innovation
Servant — Prioritizing the needs of the team and the organization.

The key isn’t to stick to one style, but to develop the self-awareness and flexibility to adjust your approach as needed. This adaptability enables you to meet different challenges and maximize your impact in different contexts.

Understanding your natural leadership tendencies is the first step toward growth. By recognizing your default style—along with its strengths and limitations—you can consciously expand your range of approaches. This versatility will enhance your effectiveness as a leader and allow you to excel in a wider range of situations.

💡 Expert Insight: Stephen Shedletzky

One of the challenges in addressing the question ‘what makes a great leader?’ is that we don’t yet have a standardized definition of of the term. Perhaps that’s okay as leadership ought to be nuanced and influenced by each and every context. That said, when it comes to cultivating healthy organizational culture, leaders in that context ought to define leadership, select better leaders, and help leaders lead.As my dear friend and colleague, Ret. Navy SEAL Commander and bestselling author Rich Diviney shares, “Leaders aren’t born. Leaders aren’t made. Leaders are chosen based upon the way they behave.” To lead is a verb. It means to go first. And, if you behave in a way that is worth following, you are a leader.

I like to distinguish between ‘capital L’ Leadership and ‘lowercase l’ leadership. A capital L Leader has the title. But just because you have the title does not mean you are a leader. I have met and worked for many Leaders who have authority over others. People may do as they say out of fear or a perceived necessity, but they are not leaders. They are drivers. I have also come across many lowercase l leaders who have no title or authority but they behave in a way that is worth following. They have influence. We need more folks who behave as leaders, regardless of title.

If leadership is in our behaviors, what are the behaviors of leadership? While this may not be a completely exhaustive list, I think it’s a good start. Leaders exude care and empathy; they are authentic – they behave consistently true to who they are, warts and all; leaders show up to serve a cause bigger than themselves and the people around them; they are decisive – making timely and appropriate decisions; and they take accountability – they take responsibility when things go wrong and give credit to others when things go right.

You need not be warm or charismatic to lead. While these attributes may come in handy, they can also get in the way. I think we often confuse charisma and being a visionary for being a leader, which can get us into trouble in elevating more narcissist and fewer leaders. One of my best leaders ever was consistently cold and grumpy. It’s authentically who they were and to be anything else would be inauthentic. Even though they were consistently cold and grumpy, I never had a doubt in my mind that they cared for me, had my best interest at heart and in mind, had the humility to own their part, and showed up to help me grow and reach my infinite potential.

To lead means that we leave the people and the world around us better than we found it. And that we inspire and support others to do the same in their own right.

Stephen Shedletzky explores the connection between authentic leadership and organizational growth in his book, Speak-Up Culture: When Leaders Truly Listen, People Step Up.

More about Speak-Up Culture.

What are the Qualities of a Great Leader?

Great leadership doesn’t just happen; it’s shaped by experience, self-reflection, and continuous learning. Over time, you can cultivate the qualities that define exceptional leaders, enabling you to inspire, guide, and empower others to excel.

Being a great leader doesn’t mean being perfect or being right 100 percent of the time. Even the most respected leaders are flawed and make mistakes. What sets them apart is their ability to leverage their strengths, address their weaknesses, and continually strive for growth and improvement.

The Core Principles of a Great Leader

Great leadership is built on:

Integrity — Great leaders are honest and ethical, consistently aligning their actions with their values. They hold themselves to high standards, even under pressure, and make decisions that reflect their principles.
Vision — Effective leaders have a clear and compelling vision of the future. They articulate this vision in a way that inspires and motivates others, seeing opportunities where others may see obstacles.
Courage — Leadership often requires making tough decisions and taking calculated risks. Great leaders have the courage to stand by their convictions and challenge the status quo when necessary.
Adaptability — In a rapidly changing world, flexibility is key. Great leaders are open to new ideas and can adjust their strategies and approaches as circumstances evolve.

These principles are interconnected and often mutually reinforcing. For example, your integrity can enhance your ability to inspire others with a clear vision, while empathy enables you to adapt effectively to the needs of your team.

Emotional and Social Intelligence

While intellectual prowess is important, emotional intelligence (EQ) is often what separates great leaders from the good ones. Emotional and social intelligence include the ability to understand and manage your own emotions while recognizing and managing the emotions of others.

When it comes to leadership, emotional and social intelligence typically manifest as:

Self-awareness — Recognizing your own emotions, strengths, weaknesses, values, and motivations.
Empathy— Understanding and responding appropriately to the emotions of others.
Social skills — Building and maintaining relationships, influencing others, and managing conflicts.
Motivation — Pursuing achievement with passion beyond external rewards.

Leaders with high emotional intelligence operate as skilled conductors, harmonizing the different strengths of their team into a cohesive whole. They effectively navigate complex interpersonal dynamics, read the room, and regulate their own emotions.

Resilience and Positivity

Leadership involves navigating through challenges, setbacks, and occasional failures. The ability to bounce back from adversity and maintain a positive outlook is crucial for long-term success.

To a great leader, being resilient means:

Perseverance — Resilient leaders view obstacles as temporary and maintain focus and motivation during difficult times.
Solution-focused mindset — Rather than dwelling on problems, these leaders seek creative solutions and foster innovation within their teams.
Confidence — Even in the face of uncertainty, great leaders inspire confidence, sustaining morale and productivity.
Learning from setbacks — By viewing failure as an opportunity for growth, resilient leaders create a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability.

Great leaders integrate these qualities and continually develop and refine them. By focusing on core principles, nurturing emotional intelligence, and building resilience, you can have a lasting, positive impact on your team, your organization, and beyond.

💡 Expert Insight: Liane Davey

Compelling longitudinal research conducted by gHSmart shows that great leaders are decisive. Leaders who make decisions promptly, then adapt and iterate as required, significantly outperform their peers who drag their feet.

Unfortunately, decisive leaders are few and far between because making tough calls requires a willingness to work through conflict. That’s because choosing one course of action means abandoning (or at least postponing) another.

Inevitably, the decision ruffles feathers and, in some cases, creates unpleasant drama. When leaders aren’t willing or able to work through conflict constructively, they get themselves, their teams, and their organizations in conflict debt that stalls performance, stifles innovation and erodes trust.

That’s why leaders who develop a healthy mindset and strong conflict management skills are best positioned for success.

Liane Davey dives deeper into productive conflict and decision-making in leadership in her book, The Good Fight: Using Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Organization Back on Track.

More about The Good Fight.

How to Develop Great Leadership Skills

Leadership isn’t a title or an endpoint; it’s a set of skills honed through deliberate practice and real-world application. But how do you transform potential into proficiency? What specific steps can emerging leaders take to cultivate the skills necessary for effective leadership?

Personal Development

Personal development—a commitment to self-improvement and the courage to challenge yourself—is an integral component of leadership. Start by gaining a deep understanding of your current leadership skills and identifying areas for growth. Tools such as 360-degree feedback and personality assessments can provide valuable insights. Regular self-reflection can help you process experiences and extract meaningful lessons.

A growth mindset is critical on this journey. Set clear goals, outline actionable steps, and establish timelines for improving your skills. Growth often occurs outside of your comfort zone, so embrace challenging roles and experiences that push your limits and broaden your perspective.

Team Building

Effective leadership is deeply connected with the ability to build and nurture high-performing teams, creating environments where individuals can thrive and do their best work. Start by fostering trust and psychological safety within your team. Team members should feel safe to express ideas, take risks, and be themselves. Great leaders model this behavior by showing vulnerability, admitting mistakes, and valuing diverse perspectives.

Knowing when and how to delegate is another critical element of team building—and an invaluable opportunity for growth. When delegating, make sure you:

set clear goals, but allow autonomy in execution;
provide support and resources as needed; and
increase the complexity of tasks to match the growing skills of your team members.

Effective leaders foster collaboration and diversity. Diverse teams bring different perspectives that can lead to innovation. Establish norms that encourage equal participation and provide cultural competency and unconscious bias training to promote inclusivity.

Conflict is inevitable, but how you handle it defines your leadership. Strengthen your conflict resolution skills by practising active listening, seeking common ground, and working toward win-win solutions. Well-managed conflict can lead to stronger team bonds and better decisions.

Effective Communication

Communication is central to leadership. It’s how you share your vision, motivate your team, and tackle challenges. Developing strong communication skills is essential for any great leader.

Start with active listening. Really focus on understanding the other person’s perspective, rather than simply waiting for your turn to speak. Use techniques such as paraphrasing and asking clarifying questions to ensure you get the full message.
When expressing your own ideas, clear and concise messaging are key. Structure your messages with a clear main point supported by essential details. The ability to distill complex ideas into simple terms is invaluable. Continually seek feedback on your communication style and be open to making adjustments.
Nonverbal communication is just as powerful. Your body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice can convey more than words alone. Consider recording yourself during meetings or presentations to evaluate and improve these aspects of your communication.
Storytelling is another powerful tool in a great leader’s communication arsenal. Weave relevant anecdotes and analogies into your messages. Stories make abstract concepts more relatable and memorable, helping to inspire and motivate your team.
Finally, become adept at giving and receiving feedback. Constructive feedback is critical to both individual and team growth. Familiarize yourself with effective feedback models and use them regularly. Just as important, foster a culture where feedback flows freely in all directions.

💡 Expert Insight: Armen Akaragian

In my experience as a personal injury trial lawyer, I’ve found that great leaders are not created overnight.

To become a great leader, I believe you must first master your craft. After that, you must earn the respect of your peers and coworkers, which in my case often meant leading by example. Then, you have to be willing to listen to and empower those on your team. Finally, a great leader has to be able to make the right decision most of the time.

Without meeting these minimum requirements, I don’t think you’re likely to achieve a great leadership role—and even if you do, it will be short lived. As summed up by General Electric former CEO Jack Welch, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

Armen Akaragian is a partner at Mardirossian Akaragian LLP. He has successfully litigated numerous high-profile cases resulting in multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements.

Techniques for Effective Leadership

The most successful leaders understand that leadership is contextual. What works in one situation may not necessarily work in another. Great leaders are adept at reading the environment, understanding their team’s needs, and adjusting their approach accordingly. This adaptability is critical in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing business environment.

Effective leadership goes beyond managing tasks and achieving goals. It relies on techniques that include building a culture of trust, fostering open communication, and creating a shared sense of purpose. Great leaders know how to balance the immediate needs of the organization with long-term vision, make tough decisions while maintaining team morale, and drive change while ensuring stability.

Practical Leadership Methods

One of the most powerful tools in a leader’s toolbox is leading by example. This technique goes beyond verbal instruction; it’s about demonstrating through actions the behaviors and values expected of the team. Leaders who embody the work ethic, integrity, and commitment they seek in others set a powerful standard throughout the organization.

Leading by example involves:

Demonstrating a strong work ethic
Showing integrity in decision making
Displaying resilience in the face of challenges
Committing to continuous learning and improvement

Another method is empowerment. Effective leaders understand that their role isn’t to micromanage, but to create an environment where team members feel trusted and capable of taking initiative.

Empowerment involves:

Delegating meaningful responsibilities
Providing the necessary resources and support
Encouraging calculated risk-taking and innovation
Recognizing and rewarding initiative and performance

Servant leadership is another technique that turns the traditional power dynamics on its head. Here, the leader’s primary focus is on serving their team members and ensuring that they have the support they need to excel.

Servant leadership involves:

Prioritizing the growth and well-being of the team
Removing obstacles that hinder team performance
Fostering a sense of community within the team
Leading with humility and empathy

Leadership Strategies

Strategic thinking involves the ability to see the big picture, anticipate future trends and challenges, and make decisions that position the organization for long-term success. Strategic leaders:

Regularly analyze the external environment for opportunities and threats
Align team efforts with the long-term goals of the organization
Make decisions that consider both short-term needs and long-term implications
Foster a culture of innovation and adaptability

Change management is another critical strategy in a leader’s toolkit—especially in today’s dynamic business environment. Effective change leaders:

Communicate the need for change clearly and persuasively
Engage team members in the change process to build buy-in
Anticipate and manage resistance to change
Celebrate small wins to maintain momentum during long-term change initiatives

Conflict resolution is something that every great leader must master. When managed effectively, conflict can lead to better decisions, increased innovation, and stronger team bonds. Leaders skilled in conflict resolution:

Address conflict promptly and directly
Facilitate open and honest communication among conflicting parties
Focus on interests, not positions
Seek win-win solutions that meet the needs of everyone involved

💡 Expert Insight: Julie Ellis

Great leaders understand that their leadership isn’t a static state of being. As a leader, you are always growing, adapting and learning new things about how to lead.

Five things that make a great leader:

Foster a Positive Culture — Ensuring that your team feels that culture is inclusive, positive and creates a great working environment.
Empower the Team — A great leader builds trust with their team, delegates effectively and often and gives their team the autonomy to make decisions and grow in the roles they occupy.
Effective Communication — Making sure our teams are engaged, informed and that they understand the expectations are key. Creating an environment where they feel comfortable sharing their ideas and communicating openly are success factors.
Clear Decision-Making Frameworks — Ensuring that the team is aware of what is needed to make decisions is important. Making sure to weigh the options, consider what impact the decision could have, and then taking action. Remember that not making that decision is also a decision.
Continuous Learning and Improvement — Leadership is never static. A commitment to growth, both personally and professionally, understanding the business life cycle, and continuously seeking feedback on your own performance helps set you on the path to being a great leader.

Of course, there are many other qualities to leadership, but if you focus on these five—and do them well—it’s a great start.

Julie Ellis shares her entrepreneurial journey and insights on leadership, helping women leaders set and achieve ambitious business objectives, in her book, Big Gorgeous Goals: How Bold Women Achieve Great Things.

More about Big Gorgeous Goals.

Advanced Leadership Concepts

As leaders progress in their journey, they face increasingly complex challenges that require a deeper understanding of leadership dynamics. Advanced leadership goes beyond basic management and focuses on the intricate workings of organizational behavior, change dynamics, and ethical decision-making in high-stakes situations. It involves viewing the organization as a complex system of interconnected parts, where decisions in one area affect the whole.

At this level, leaders must balance competing priorities, navigate ambiguity, and think systemically. Traditional hierarchy and control give way to distributed leadership, which recognizes that in today’s fast-paced environment, effective leadership is shared across the organization. Advanced leadership also emphasizes creating and sustaining cultures that foster innovation, adaptability, and high performance-not just through policies, but by shaping the very values and assumptions that drive people’s behavior.

Leadership Theories

As leadership challenges evolve, so do the theories that provide frameworks and insights that can help understand the different approaches.

Transformational Leadership, which emerged in the late 1970s and expanded in the 1980s, focuses on inspiring and motivating followers to exceed expectations. Transformational leaders can drive significant change by:

Serving as role models
Articulating a compelling vision
Encouraging creative thinking
Providing personalized support

This approach is particularly effective in organizations seeking to drive innovation in competitive, fast-paced environments.

The 1990s introduced Adaptive Leadership, which addresses the need to navigate complex, often ambiguous challenges. This model distinguishes between technical problems, which can be solved with existing know-how, and adaptive challenges, which require new learning and value changes. Adaptive leaders excel at mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges, fostering experimentation, and managing the stress of change.

The early 2000s saw the rise of Authentic Leadership, emphasizing the importance of leaders being true to themselves and their values. Authentic leaders demonstrate high self-awareness, openness, balanced decision-making, and a strong moral compass. In a world that increasingly values transparency and ethical behavior, this approach builds trust and commitment, fostering a positive organizational culture.

The Complexity Leadership model takes a different approach, recognizing that traditional, linear models are insufficient in today’s interconnected business environment. Instead, it proposes a framework that combines:

Adaptive leadership — Fostering innovation and emergent solutions
Administrative leadership — Ensuring organizational effectiveness and stability
Enabling leadership — Creating the conditions for adaptive leadership to emerge and flourish

This theory is particularly relevant in knowledge-intensive industries, where innovation is the key to success.

Effective leaders often draw from multiple advanced concepts and adapt their approach to specific organizational needs and challenges. Understanding these diverse perspectives enables leaders to develop a comprehensive toolkit for navigating the multifaceted demands of modern leadership.

Ethical and Crisis Leadership

In today’s fast-paced, hyper-connected world, ethical leadership has become more important than ever. Ethical leaders are challenged to navigate complex dilemmas that often don’t have a clear right answer. They must balance the needs of multiple stakeholders, consider the long-term consequences of their actions, and make tough decisions while maintaining transparency and accountability.

One concept that increasingly intersects with this ethical dimension is crisis leadership. It involves leading an organization through periods of intense threat or disruption and requires a unique set of skills:

Making quick decisions during periods of uncertainty

Communicating clearly and frequently

Balancing immediate needs with long-term concerns

Maintaining team morale and cohesion under stress

Effective crisis leaders must think clearly in high-pressure situations, make decisions with incomplete information, and inspire confidence in their team in the face of adversity. Great leaders act as a steadying force, providing direction when everything seems to be in flux.

During crises, leaders may face intense pressure to compromise ethical standards for short-term gain or immediate problem solving, but maintaining ethical integrity during these critical times is critical to the long-term health and reputation of your organization. A leader who sacrifices ethics during a crisis may solve an immediate problem, but create lasting damage to trust and credibility.

As organizations face increasingly complex ethical dilemmas and unpredictable crises, the demand for leaders who can navigate these challenges with integrity and effectiveness will only grow. The future of leadership is likely to see an even greater emphasis on ethical decision-making frameworks and crisis preparedness, as organizations invest more in developing these critical skills in their leaders.