What Makes a Good Leader?

Leadership isn’t something a person owns. It’s something a community recognises. People decide whether they will follow you, and they keep testing that decision over time. Character matters because leaders lead people and shape communities. Skill and strategy help, but without integrity they don’t last.

Here are three tests that sit underneath most leadership assessments.

Do you love us?

Authority means your decisions affect others. The first question is whether you use that authority for yourself or for the people you lead. Individuals put their own needs first. Leaders put the community first. They serve, they listen, and they act with integrity. People don’t expect perfection, but they do watch whether you care about them and whether you use power responsibly.

Are you competent?

There are individuals who talk big ideas, love influence, and enjoy being seen as visionary. But leadership is more than inspiring words. Leaders bring others with them in the process, and they do what they promise. Their ideas aren’t pipe dreams. They have the judgment and follow-through to bring those ideas to fruition. In the end, competence is trust made practical: you said you would carry this, and you did.

Are you committed?

A community wants to know: Will you leave us when something better comes along?

Because something better always comes along. A bigger stage. A more prestigious opportunity. A new role that offers more recognition, more money, or less friction. If leadership is merely a stepping-stone, people feel it. They stop investing. They stop risking trust. They stop offering you their best, because they assume you won’t be around when things get hard.

Commitment doesn’t mean you can never leave. But commitment does mean you don’t treat people as disposable. You don’t build a platform on their backs and call it success. If you do need to move on, you do it with honesty, care, and a deep concern for the wellbeing of the community you’ve led.

A good leader is someone a community can trust.

• Love says: I am for you.
• Competence says: I can carry this.
• Commitment says: I won’t abandon you.

Leadership, at its best, is not a possession to be claimed. It is a responsibility to be received—an entrusted gift—confirmed over time by the people who are actually affected by your decisions.

And that, ultimately, is why character is the test.