When you think about successful executives, you might immediately jump to revenue growth, market share gains, shareholder returns, or other performance metrics. Those numbers, though informative, are like the summaries on the outside of a book: they’re not the whole story. It’s the deeper qualities of your executive leaders that drive success.
Great leaders leverage their personal experiences and strengths to create unique paths to success. But as the best CEO recruiters will tell you, these executives share common traits at their core. When you are hiring new executives or improving current leadership, focus on the following eight traits to define long-term success.
1. Integrity
Executive success starts with integrity. Trustworthy leaders tell the truth and own up to mistakes, even if they make them look bad or lead to missed opportunities. These aren’t flashy qualities, but they’re the foundation of successful leaders, especially at the top level.
You feel the absence of integrity when an executive erodes trust across your company. Cutting corners for short-term wins may look good on quarterly reports, but it causes long-term damage to your business. Your teams no longer work well together, employees leave, clients question your reputation, and your bottom line suffers.
Ask C-level candidates questions about past mistakes for evidence of their honesty in the past and now, with a job on the line. Trustworthiness is a non-negotiable trait for your executives. You keep your company respected and aligned for success when your leaders have integrity.
2. Emotional Intelligence
This quality isn’t about being “nice” or “touchy-feely.” Because emotional intelligence impacts a company, executive search headhunters and C-level hiring experts hone in on these people skills as signs of successful candidates. They know successful leaders can read the room, determine when to push and when to listen, and manage their own emotions to lead effectively.
Imagine a string of events destroys your business’s supply chain. You don’t want your chief executive officer (CEO) to hide behind a wall of data or add to the crisis by lashing out. You need a leader who acknowledges people’s concerns, communicates with empathy, creates space for collaborative solutions, and manages the problems with a level head. That’s the kind of executive your team will follow through the crisis.
Emotional intelligence also plays a key role in decision-making. Self-aware executives are better at managing ego, accepting feedback, and avoiding blind spots. They can see themselves as human and are open to working with other people to make better decisions. That leads to stronger relationships and a healthier organization overall.
Find an emotionally intelligent leader using assessments to identify strengths and weaknesses in key areas. This information can help you prioritize candidates or improve your current leadership. Executives who drive performance metrics are the same executives with emotional intelligence.
3. Vision and Direction
Performance today is important, but you need someone to lead the company into the future. Executives focused only on short-term wins tend to avoid risks, delay innovation, and protect the current bottom line. Companies prioritizing performance over vision fail to evolve and grow, so eventually, they pay the price.
Hiring for vision means choosing an executive who thinks beyond managing operations. They ask big questions, analyze areas for improvement, challenge assumptions, study emerging trends, and create bold strategies for growth. In your current leadership teams, encourage vision and direction with “zoom-out” discussions and online communities focused on your industry’s future.
A leader with vision and direction may take risks that don’t pay off or lose revenue for a quarter. However, the adaptability and growth they bring to your company will cover the costs of short-term losses with long-term success.
4. Generosity
Your best leaders will build bridges and cultivate an environment where people feel safe and supported. They’ll give their talents and energy to reinforce your company culture. They invest in the people in your organization because they know people are the source of success. These actions define generous and community-minded leaders.
Generosity drives C-level teams to create and protect culture. Say your organization values mentorship. You’re looking for a leader who teaches everyone their secrets to success without waiting for defined mentoring assignments. They are generous with their knowledge. Or if your company places a high priority on accountability, you need a leader who gives credit to the team before themselves.
Focus on your company culture to identify generosity in executive candidates and current leaders. Start with your values, and then consider how a successful leader contributes to your desired behaviors, mindsets, and expectations. The way your executives shape how your team works every day is evidence of their generosity.
Generosity is invisible on resumes and will never show up on market share reports. But a leader’s investment in people flows from the top like oxygen to breathe new life into your whole organization.
5. Communication Skills
Great executives connect with people when they communicate. They lead by articulating purpose, simplifying complexity, connecting to values, and energizing a room. Their body language, attention, tone of voice, and words are all tools in their communication arsenal.
Successful leaders consistently and sincerely communicate. They use everything from email and phone calls to boardroom presentations and training videos to reach their audiences, and the focus is always on aligning people to shared goals. That clarity and influence strengthen your organization like steel beams reinforcing your walls.
Good communication isn’t just about information flowing out. It’s about taking information in. Recognize great listeners by watching how candidates act in the interview. Are they so concerned about getting a word in that they misunderstand the questions? Do they show with their body language that they are actively listening? Do they ask follow-up questions? A successful leader listens as well as they talk.
6. Improvement Mindset
Executives with an improvement mindset drive business growth. They constantly find new ways to better themselves, their work, their teams, and their organizations.
Look for executives with a desire to learn. Those who read books and blogs by other executives, study success stories from sports and the arts, follow changes in industry standards, ask people questions about their expertise, and reflect on their experiences are growth-oriented. They will encourage growth in your company like they do in themselves.
Steer away from leaders who expect perfection in themselves and others. Ask about a time they failed and recovered from it. Watch for answers that show that candidates view failures as learning opportunities.
7. Humility and Confidence
You need someone who can own the room without dominating it, make decisions without arrogance, and admit they don’t have all the answers. A successful executive balances confidence with humility to be a leader you can trust and relate to as a person.
A balance between these two qualities at the top creates psychological safety for your company. People want to do their best and aren’t afraid of retribution for mistakes. This environment increases feedback, innovation, collaboration, retention, and satisfaction. It is one of the driving factors behind measurable success for your organization, and it starts with your executive.
It can be hard to identify confidence and humility in interviews, but trust your instincts. Pay attention to how candidates react to hard questions about their weaknesses or failures and their attitude about their strengths and wins. When you find someone who pairs strategic confidence with grounded humility, you’ve found a successful leader who’s credible and approachable.
8. Resilience
It’s easy to lead when things are going well. But what happens when market conditions shift, or a key client leaves? A successful executive can take the hits, adjust their plans, communicate clearly, and inspire their organization.
This resilience often comes from experience, but it also reflects a mindset. Many successful entrepreneurs come from difficult life circumstances that developed their determination and grit at a young age. Ask candidates how they have navigated setbacks in the past to learn more about their mindset.
Say your e-commerce company is working with a retail executive search firm to hire a chief operations officer (COO). Ask about a time when things went wrong with a supply chain or ordering system. How did they recover? What did they learn from it? With a resilient leader, your company’s performance metrics reflect the same adaptability and long-term success as your executives.
Read the Book
Executive success relies on character, vision, emotional intelligence, cultural alignment, and the ability to lead through challenges. If resumes and metrics are summaries on the cover of a book, then focusing on a leader’s full range of qualities is reading the book. Those surface-level items may provide some initial information, but you want to know the whole story when trusting an executive with your organization.
So the next time you evaluate C-level candidates, read the whole book to find a successful leader and set your company up to thrive.
