Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends report has for years, identified concerns over leadership as one of the main issues affecting global employers. Positive leadership helps organizations to attract, hire and retain passive talent to drive your business forward.

In today’s candidate driven market, a lack of authentic executive leadership will result in your company struggling to recruit the high achievers you need to achieve your goals.

Here we’ve identified some of the essential characteristics of great leadership essential to successful talent acquisition:

Communication

No one can be a great leader without communicating effectively. An accomplished communicator motivates employees while moving organizations forward. Great leaders intuitively understand their teams and are able to address their needs directly while keeping them aligned with business goals.

Generosity

The best leaders are generous in their praise and recognition of employee achievements. The success of their team matters just as much as their own. They know that inspiring their workers to achieve their personal best is key to success. Their generosity extends to consideration for the well-being of their employees, not just the balance sheet.

Humility

A dose of humility is essential to great leadership who realize that their positions of power and authority don’t automatically infer superiority. Even leaders get laid off from time to time! Great leaders don’t ask anything of their teams that they wouldn’t be willing to do themselves and when the going gets tough they get alongside their employees to ensure business goals are achieved.

Self awareness

We all view ourselves more favorably than we view others from time to time. The greatest leaders possess a high level of self awareness, which gives them candid insights into their strengths and weaknesses. They intuitively know how to achieve the right balance, capitalizing on their strengths while learning how to compensate and adjust for their weaknesses.

Treat others with respect

Rather than adhere to the adage “treat others as you would like to be treated,” great leaders treat each individual as that person prefers to be treated. They understand what inspires or de-motivates their people and adapt their responses to them accordingly.

Courage

 Sometimes unpopular decisions need to be made. Leaders who lack courage will simply avoid making those tough decisions to avoid exposing themselves to the risk of failure. Great leaders make the difficult decisions that are necessary to drive a business forward and in doing so motivate their teams to do the same.

Authentic

Authenticity is at the heart of successful talent acquisition. An authentic brand message will help your business to attract, hire and retain passive talent. Great leaders exude authenticity in everything they do, ensuring their words and actions are in alignment and enjoying a rare level of loyalty from their employees.

Accountable

Accountability goes hand in hand with authenticity. The buck stops with great leadership. Inspirational leaders take responsibility for their decisions, they admit to their failures and they earn trust from their people. A sense of purpose: Today’s top performers like to feel they are playing a vital role in something that is much bigger than themselves. They are motivated by a clear sense of company purpose - great leaders exude that sense of purpose which motivates. Companies with great leadership enjoy enviable levels of employee engagement – and retain a competitive edge in the race for talent in today’s employment market.