There is nothing as important in growing your business as bringing the right people on board. You want people who understand your vision, who fit within the culture you are trying to create, but most importantly you want people who display the set of qualities that will contribute to the culture of your company in a positive way.
The qualities you want to look for are:
Passion
A passionate person is a person full of energy, drive, and creativity. Passion is contagious. People are drawn to those who are excited about building something. Passionate people ignite confidence in others and bring team-members together.
As a leader, one thing to remember is to not dampen others’ passions. It is an invaluable fire that lights up company’s success and when continuously put down can turn into indifference. And indifference is extremely damaging to any culture.
Self-motivation
Self-motivation is one of the most essential qualities you can find in an employee. As a manager, there is nothing as important as being able to delegate a broader problem to someone and know that that someone will come back with a specific strategy or solution. Mentoring your team-members is necessary, but constant hand-holding can put unnecessary stress on the shoulders of a manager. Finding people who are self-motivated to learn / grow is crucial to leader’s success.
A lot of times self-motivation is fueled by passion. Your employees will go above and beyond every time when they care about their work.
Inspiring collaboration
The ability to bring people together and be able to influence their decisions, especially when those people don’t report directly to you, is a fantastic quality. It is easy to put a strategy together and direct people to comply with it. It is a whole other story to be able to collaborate with your stakeholders in a way that will drive them to want to adopt that strategy. This is a sign of a great team-player and a great leader.
Desire to learn
Without constant learning, questioning if a different solution might be a better fit, and expanding beyond your role into the industry’s latest and greatest trends and discussions, you cannot continue to stay relevant / cutting edge / innovative. There are always new tools, new players, new solutions that you need to know to expand your horizons and to do your job better. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs are self-educated and curious people.
Optimism
We’ve all heard too much of “this can’t be done,” “this is just too hard,” “I don’t think you can pull this off.” I find that optimistic people are the most successful and liked people. Instead of giving up, confident people find creative ways to solve the problem, they bring the right teams together (after all, wouldn’t you want to work with someone who inspires “I can!” attitude?), and infuse necessary passion and positive attitude into the project.
Don’t take no for an answer
The ability to find a solution to any problem is priceless. Optimism pared with persistence always leads to unusual but effective solutions. The employees who truly care don’t take no for an answer and always find creative ways to bridge a gap or find a better way of running business.
It’s your turn. What qualities do you value in your top employees?
Originally posted in Forbes