This below chart shows the extensive research that Kouzes & Posner did regarding the leading characteristics of admired leaders.
The top four identified are:
1. Honesty
2. Forward-looking
3. Inspiring
4. Competent
A couple of excellent quotes from Kouzes & Posner’s book, “Credibility”
“A loyal constituency is won when the people, consciously or unconsciously, judge the leader to be capable of solving their problems and meeting their needs, when the leader is seen as symbollizing their norms, and when their image of the leader (whether or not it corresponds to reality) is congruent with their inner environment of myth and legend.”
~ John Gardner — former cabinet secretary, founder of Common Cause, adviser to six U.S. presidents, and respected author and scholar.
“In the end, leaders don’t decide who leads, followers do”
Kouzes & Posner (2011) Credibility: How Leaders’s Gain it and Lose it and Why People Demand it. New York, NY: Jossey-Bass
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