When people reflect on what characteristics a leader that inspires and motivates possesses, there are two themes that are always reoccurring – that you have to have charisma and that you can’t develop the behavioral skills to needed to inspire and motivate.

These two assumptions are completely wrong because although charisma is a plus if you are a leader, it isn’t crucial that you have it and the behavioral skills that enable you to inspire and motivate can be learned.

Recently, research was conducted on a group of 1000 successful leaders. Their qualities, working habits and characteristics were examined to identify what behaviors, attitudes and characteristics were the most common among them.

Here are the top 6 ways a leader may inspire and motivate.

Be Enhancing

A leader that inspires and motivates is one who makes themselves accessible to their team. If a leader fosters an enhancing approach, they will seek to create one-on-one relationships and a positive working team. An enhancing leader is one who listens, cares and makes emotional connections.

Be Visionary

A visionary leader is one who provides a clear vision for the future and communicates this goal to their team.

Be an Expert

An expert leader is one who has a great amount of experience, and therefore can provide a deep understanding of technical direction.

Be a Driver

A driver is a leader who inspires and motivates their team by keeping focused and striving for results. They recognise the importance of timeliness and will willingly be held accountable for personal and team performance results.

Be an Enthusiast

This is the most familiar and known leadership approach. A leader who is an Enthusiast is one who exerts energy, positivity and passion in their workplace, their goals and their work.

Although many assume that to be an inspiring and motivating leader you have to be an Enthusiast, the above is proof positive that that assumption is incorrect. Whilst the research found all of the above characteristics to be common amongst the top 1000 leaders, they also found that not one of them only possessed the one trait – they all had multiple approaches that defined them rather than relying on just one.