Leadership means different things to different people. When organizations choose or select leaders for various positions in their organizations, I see them looking at different aspects of leadership like “People Management”, “Motivational Skills”, “Result Orientation”, etc.
If I were to look at Leadership from a psychological perspective alone, I think there are some factors in 16PF which gives me a very good idea about the Leadership skills that a person possesses:
- High Emotional Stability: A leaders who doesn’t panic when things go wrong, is stable, resilient, do not press the panic button easily, works as a shock absorber and doesn’t pass it to his subordinates.
- High Dominance and Social Boldness: A leader must be assertive, forceful, socially bold, uninhibited and thick skinned. It is important for the leader to be forceful and thick skinned at the same time so that he could take criticism easily. If a door closes on his, he doesn’t go back into his shell but knocks another door.
- Low Apprehension: A leader must be confident and has little self-doubt. Self-doubt is important so that leader reviews his own and other’s outputs. At the same time, leader should be confident about himself and doesn’t worry too much.
- High Perfectionism: A leader must be organized, Self-disciplined, Perfectionistic and has a planned approach to achieving perfection in his and others’ work.
- Tough-minded and Independent: A leader must be an influencer, sticks to his ideas, yet be flexible to new ideas and suggestions. He must have an independent view of things and not get carried away by thoughts of others alone.
I am yet to find a person who has all of the above in the right measure. Therefore, it is needless to say don’t necessarily look for all of these qualities in a leader but pick out of the above what works for your organization. However, for all aspiring leaders, this could be the wish-list they could work through to achieve their goals.
