Career Development All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 1

Building Your Leadership Muscles

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using your head

Keeping people in the loop

Making sound decisions

Finding the middle ground

You may wonder why some people seem to become leaders naturally and effortlessly, whereas others don’t. You’ve probably heard reverent whispers that so-and-so is a natural leader, but leadership is situational, not hereditary. Believing that certain people are destined for leadership is easy, however, if those people have personality traits that lend themselves to leadership.

Although some come naturally by personality traits common to leaders, personality traits can be developed, too. Think of it this way: Some people have to work hard to develop a good golf swing, while others seem to naturally have a knack for it. Similarly, with perseverance and work, anyone can develop his or her own leadership traits. (And people who work diligently to develop an ability often end up better than those who just get by on their natural abilities.)

In this chapter, we focus on ten of the most important traits common to great leaders. Developing ...