Competencies Recently, a 2002 study found that leading-edge companies define leadership by a set of competencies. These are now used to guide leadership development at all levels. By the same token, a majority of organizations have, on their own, identified and defined the characteristics and qualities of successful leaders. The former focuses on the individual traits of the leaders and targets that person s strengths and weaknesses. The latter is mainly focused on using people that surrounds that leader to. This means that interpersonal and social skills are assessed to be able to help the leader develop his or her innate skills. Experts say that for one to develop a positive outlook in life, he or she must be able to keep a positive attitude first. Once positive attitude is set, it is easier to look things in an orderly way. For one to develop positive attitude, he or she must undergo self-reassessment to find out what are his or her strengths as well as the weaknesses. Peaceful leader He is the golden retriever, and he can be the hardest to motivate. He can definitely frustrate most of the personality types listed in any group. However, he has the most compassion among everybody. It is very easy for the rest to share their most personal feelings with him. Popular leader This guy is the most fun of all the other leader types. A fumbling idiot or an arrogant micromanager is not an inspirational sight. The ability to recognize the problematic aspects of your personality and to either minimize or remove them is one of the hallmarks of good leadership. Finally, leadership development isn't all just about navel-gazing. It's also about learning skills that are helpful in your job as leader. Developing Your Leadership Style: Getting Into Leadership Development Being the boss may sound like a good thing but it's more often a headache when you actually reach the top. This is because, like the employees at the bottom, leaders face a unique set of challenges that is comes part-and-parcel of being where all the decisions are made.