Rohn: 7 Personality Traits of a Great Leader

The qualities of skillful leadership 

Jim Rohn   

If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. Jim Rohn calls leadership the great challenge of life.

What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here’s how:

1. Learn to be strong but not impolite.

It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It's not even a good substitute.

2. Learn to be kind but not weak.

We must not mistake weakness for kindness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell someone the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3. Learn to be bold but not a bully.

It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you've got to walk in front of your group. You've got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble. Like the farmer, if you want any rewards at harvest time, you have got to be bold and face the weeds and the rain and the bugs straight on. You've got to seize the moment.

4. Learn to be humble but not timid.

You can't get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. But humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease. It's an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem. Humility is almost a God-like word—a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, an awareness of the human soul and spirit, an understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars.

5. Learn to be proud but not arrogant.

It takes pride to build your ambitions. It takes pride in your community. It takes pride in a cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is to be proud without being arrogant. Do you know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance from ignorance. It's intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that's just too much to take.

6. Learn to develop humor without folly.

In leadership, we learn that it's OK to be witty but not silly; fun but not foolish.

7. Learn to deal in realities.

Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony of delusion. Just accept life as it is—the whole drama of life. It's fascinating.
Life is unique. Leadership is unique. The skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. However, the fundamental skills of leadership can be adopted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community and at home.
http://www.success.com/article/rohn-7-personality-traits-of-a-great-leader

Learn to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

We must learn to say no to the things that don’t matter so we can say yes to the things we care about.

Tony Jeary

Q: I’m a people pleaser—I have trouble saying no. How can I change?

A: Learning to say no is the single most effective way to increase your focus and productivity. Saying no will help you reduce what I call low leverage activities (those that consume resources and drive results slowly) and invest more time and energy into high leverage activities, which are the key to achieving the right results faster. We must learn to say no to the things that don’t matter so we can say yes to the things we care about.

There are a lot of ways to say no and make people feel as if you still care. Sometimes it really means saying not now.

I teach clients that instead of something being a complete no, it can be no and instead. For example, if someone asks me to lunch to talk about something and I am unsure whether it is a high leverage activity, I will ask the person more questions. If I learn the information can be covered over email, I’ll suggest that. I am still staying no to his initial request, but I answered his question and freed up a few hours for myself to invest in other things.

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13 Underappreciated Traits You Absolutely Need to Succeed

Picture the most successful person you know. What is it about them that you admire the most? What characteristics do they have that you really respect? Is it their confidence? Their intelligence? Or maybe it’s their work ethic?
But what about the things you might not notice at first glance? Like an insatiable hunger, gratitude or patience? Often it’s the traits that fly under the radar that can have the biggest impact on your ability to achieve.
We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council which of these underappreciated traits they value the most. Because even though they’re not as “loud,” they’re absolutely necessary to succeed.

1. Mindfulness

It’s easy to get lost in the grind and miss out on many things in the demanding environment that comes with entrepreneurship. I deliberately and regularly make time to reflect on past successes and failures, which opens my mind up to different possibilities. There’s a lesson in every outcome in our lives and discovering them makes us grow.

—Turgay Birand, EditionGuard

2. Solid Speaking Skills

I was an active member of my high school debate team for all four years. The extracurricular helped me become more articulate, logical and overall a better public speaker. These skills have played a critical role in my development into the business leader I am today.

—Paul Hager, Information Technology Professionals

3. Insatiability

I’m a naturally insatiable person when it comes to learning and growth. This leads to being open to new ideas, asking questions and ingesting endless amounts of new content. All of this leads toward success, as one new piece of knowledge builds on another and sparks of curiosity create new valuable relationships. It also results in a constant drive to dissect and improve my business.

—Darrah Brustein, Network Under 40

4. Decisiveness

The most successful leaders recognize they do not have time to get all of the facts for the dozens of decisions they make each day. Instead, they just need to gather enough information to make sound decisions so the company can move forward. Some of those decisions will be wrong, but it’s better to learn from those mistakes and try again than to be immobilized by indecisiveness.

—Doug Bend, Bend Law Group, PC

5. Consistency

I think my biggest key to success—and the thing I tell others who are starting businesses—is to be consistent. Growing a business is hard, but you have to keep at it week after week and month after month. I’ve blogged almost every single week for the past seven years, and I truly attribute the fact that I’ve approached my business that way as one of the reasons for my success.

—Sean Ogle, Location Rebel

6. Coachability

Pretty much anyone can take feedback at a surface level, but actually evaluating criticism and learning from it is a rare trait. After all, feedback is incredibly personal and it can cause severe damage to your ego. Rather than nodding to harsh feedback, I learned from the best by really taking their advice to heart and separating my self-worth from my ability to have valuable learning experiences.

—Elle Kaplan, LexION Capital

7. Honesty

People appreciate my emphasis on honesty. It’s surprising really, given all the people who don’t focus on it, but honesty is still highly valued among customers who are seeking that authentic experience. Even if it means telling a customer “I can’t do something,” I'd rather be honest and let them know. They appreciate that and come back when I can help them.

—Drew Hendricks, Buttercup

8. Calmness

I have always been a very laid-back person (sometimes to a fault). In my business, I often find myself in the middle of stressful and complex deals. By staying calm, I’m able to see things more objectively and not allow the stress of the deal to force a bad decision.

—Mark Daoust, Quiet Light Brokerage, Inc.

9. Patience

I see people rush things all the time because they have that need for immediate results. But I’ve learned that slow and steady can win the race because patience often leads to better results. You are not pushing people or situations, but letting them occur naturally, which also helps me determine in advance if the moves are smart and whether I’ve covered all my bases.

—Andrew O’Connor, American Addiction Centers

10. Gratitude

There are many successful people who aren’t happy. My perspective is that gratitude is the thing that keeps you centered. Every day, I begin by writing down things I’m grateful for, and I make it a point to give gifts to people I feel grateful to. It makes them feel good, makes me feel good and keeps life centered.

—Adam Steele, The Magistrate

11. Ability to Read People

An underrated trait that I can easily attribute my success to is being able to read people. Having the ability to pick up on different people’s personalities can be extremely beneficial when interacting with them. Everyone has a different style of communicating and being able to notice that and adjust to fit their style has been key for my developing strong, long-lasting relationships.

—Bryanne Lawless, BLND Public Relations

12. Hunger and Humility

When I started my company, I was in debt. I had nothing and it made me hungry. I realized I had to go after a client that had money. This is what helped me build a multimillion-dollar success from very little capital. Being hungry and humble allows us to focus on what truly matters.

—Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors, LLC

13. Vulnerability

My whole product line started from me building my own community. I built that community on YouTube, where I’m authentic, real, vulnerable and available to my followers. I read comments, connect with them, tell them my problems and give them an honest review. The only reason I was able to launch my product line is because I had a community of people who really trust me.

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