Breakfast of Champions: Top 6 Things That Define Good Leaders

On a quarterly basis, we host a Breakfast of Champions for our vendors. It’s an opportunity for them to network and get to know each other while having breakfast. We also bring in a speaker with the goal of providing education and thought provoking content that our vendors can use in their businesses.

This month, we were excited to have Jeff DeWolf speak to us about Leadership and Job Satisfaction. If you check out his profile on LinkedIn, you will see that he calls himself a Job Happiness Fanatic. Jeff talked about the correlation between job happiness and leadership. He made a strong case that they are directly related. The better the leadership, the happier the employees.

Here are the top six things that define strong leaders.

Communication – Strong communication includes clarity of direction, opportunity for input and the level of information flow between groups.

Relationships – Relationships are the glue that holds teams together when times get tough. It’s important to foster a teamwork mentality. It’s human nature to want to be accepted in groups.

Growth – Most people want to be making forward progress in their personal and professional lives. So making progress towards their professional goals and responsibilities is important.

Fairness – It’s incredibly important that employees feel treated fairly. This means no special treatment and consistent policy administration. It also applies to compensation for the work being done.

Accountability – When employees understand what is expected of them, and why, they are usually more committed and accountable for their results. A good leader will hold their team accountable, but this can backfire without the “what” and “why”.

Trust – Jeff defined this as confidence in management’s abilities and intentions. He also made a point that when there is trust, employees will have freedom to express ideas (professionally of course) without repercussions. Good leaders are focused on an employee’s best interests over personal gain.

Have you heard a leadership talk with good points? Any other traits that you think are exhibited by strong leaders? We’d love to hear from you!