Are There Really Four Traits That Define Successful People?

Leadership

Jan 14

We’ll keep this simple – and powerful.

There are lots of good, strong traits of successful people; and a lot of those traits are driven by personality. Regardless though, there are four anchors that fuel success.

The four traits of successful people are:

Healthy emotional intelligence
High achievement drive
Excellent social skills
Strong goal clarity

Here’s the breakdown:

Healthy emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence comes through experiences in life, good and bad, and how we handle them; Emotional intelligence is personal which means that the more experiences you have or the more decisions we make, the more you grow your intelligence.

As a coach, to build emotional intelligence you need to help people find opportunities that will stretch them and allow them to see their natural biases. As well, to see a different perspective around the term "failing."

High achievement drive

What’s high achievement drive? It’s the answer to this question: Do I choose to keep going when it counts?

When times get tough, I have a choice – to move forward purposefully or to run away. This is your opportunity to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and following through, even with blind faith. If you have strong goal clarity and doing the tasks needed to get there, you won't fail, something will be gained.

If you’re coaching towards a high achievement drive, you must set up opportunities to see someone’s natural achievement drive in action and coach up from there.

Excellent social skills

Yes, social skills can be learned, but they’re not created equal. Some of us can get out there and do it naturally; some of us need coaching or support.

If social skills don’t come naturally, this is great time to explore what’s holding you back or what the "fear" is as well as, where is it coming from. Is it public speaking? Is it meeting new people? Once you identify these, set up small opportunities to put yourself in these situations or hire a coach to help you.

If you are coaching towards this skill, ask the following questions: Do social skills come naturally to them? If so, coach to that. How can they be better aligned with their personal or professional objective? Are they using this skill to add value to their personal brand or your brand?

Strong goal clarity

51% of Americans say that they have goals; 87% don’t write them down. Imagine that!

The most successful people we know can clearly define their overall goals (called Lag Goals) and the tasks they are doing to achieve them ( Lead and Lift Goals).

As well, these goals are created around the framework of a SMART goal?

If you are coaching someone on goals, besides helping them with the foundation we speak about above, you need to build immediate trust. You can only do that, if you believe they can obtain the goals they are telling you about.

If you don't believe, see if you can break down their goal to where you can believe they will have success and move from there.

Another way to say this, if they believe they can go from A to Z in 10 months and you only believe they can get to A to G in 6 months, start there, have a win together and move forward. No one wants a coach who doesn't believe in them!