Corporate Leadership

Why Initiative is an Essential Leadership Trait?

By naren@hybreed.co . January 14, 2019

After conducting numerous leadership training workshops over the years, one truth has emerged repeatedly — initiative is what separates good leaders from great ones. Whether you’re beginning to build your leadership capacity or have taken several basic leadership training programs already, initiative is the spark that ignites action.

Let us begin with a story.

Anita’s Moment of Leadership

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Anita’s boss is traveling abroad with intermittent access to emails and chat. To make things worse, it snows heavily in the city where her boss is staying, which results in zero connectivity. Meanwhile, Anita and her teammates are working on a deadline-based critical project. Suddenly, a bug comes in and no one is able to solve it. The boss is not reachable, the deadline is tight, and the team can’t afford to wait to hear back from the boss.

Suddenly, Anita takes charge, and, within a couple of hours, everyone in the team is assigned tasks and together they are able to resolve the issue. On the surface, it would appear that the success was the result of the team effort. But to me, it was Anita’s initiative that led the entire team to work together and resolve the issue. When the team was in a mess, it was Anita who proactively took the initiative and now the result is in front of us. The team was not only able to solve that bug but they were able to deliver the project successfully on time, even in the absence of their boss.

Do you take initiatives at work like Anita or do you just wait for someone else to tell you what to do?

Related Read: Leadership Lessons From My Grandma

What is Initiative?

To start with, let’s first understand what initiative is.
Initiative is the ability to act independently and take charge of a situation without being prompted.

To put it simply, it is the power or opportunity to proactively do something before others. “Initiative can neither be created nor delegated. It can only spring from the self-determining individual, who decides that the wisdom of others is not always better than his own,” says R. Buckminster Fuller.

In our leadership interventions, we’ve noticed that the 3 best qualities of a leader often boil down to:

Proactivity (initiative)
Empathy
Accountability

Taking initiative shows that you’re not just clocking in hours. You’re thinking ahead, spotting issues before they erupt, and helping others stay aligned. This is what building your leadership skills looks like in action.

We’ve seen that the leaders around you don’t ponder over problems for long. They don’t wait for others to tell them what to do and how to do it. They are forward-thinkers, they take the initiative to lead, and in the end, they take complete ownership of their actions, be it a failure or success.

The good thing is that taking initiative is a skill that you can develop. Here are a couple of tips that can help you come to the forefront and take charge.

Why It Matters in Today’s Workplace

In today’s dynamic work environments — be it hybrid, remote, or on-ground — initiative is one of the most essential leadership skills.

Learning and developing new skills will help boost your confidence and enhance your capabilities to take an initiative and the lead. You can learn new skills or improve your existing skills by proactively enrolling for training and development programs that your HR or Learning and Development teams run. Another good way to learn new skills is to take on more projects. The more knowledgeable and skilled you are, the more confident you will be to lead from the front.

Here’s why:

Speed trumps hierarchy: Teams don’t have time to wait for top-down instructions.
Innovation is decentralized: Good ideas can come from anywhere, but only if people speak up.
Psychological safety is key: When team members take initiative, it fosters a culture of ownership.

In our experience, basic leadership skills training should always include modules on developing initiative — because without it, everything else is just theory.

How to Cultivate Initiative

Let’s move beyond buzzwords. If you’re wondering what action steps to improve leadership skills look like in the context of initiative, here are some that have worked for teams we’ve trained:

1. Learn New Skills

This is foundational. The more competent you are, the more confident you’ll be to take charge.

Enroll in basic leadership courses offered by your organization.
Volunteer for stretch assignments.
Use digital learning tools to build a list of leadership skills relevant to your role.

We’ve seen firsthand how even a basic leadership training module can unlock a sense of agency in employees who didn’t previously see themselves as leaders.

2. Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Waiting for instructions is easy. But growth lives outside comfort.

Take on a new challenge, even if it feels daunting.
Speak up in meetings where you’d usually stay silent.
Experiment with a new process and share what you learned.

In one of our leadership workshops, we had a quiet participant take charge of coordinating group feedback. It was a small step — but it changed how their peers viewed them. That’s how being leadership begins.

3. Think Like a Team Member, Not Just an Employee

Ownership mindset is the foundation of a good leadership culture.

Ask yourself: “If this were my business, what would I do?”
Anticipate team needs. Step in without waiting to be asked.
Support your peers proactively.

Teams that embrace this mindset are more collaborative and resilient.

4. Share Your Ideas

Innovation isn’t about massive breakthroughs. It’s about consistent curiosity.

Keep a log of process improvement ideas.
Suggest tweaks that could help your team move faster.
Back up your suggestions with data or examples.

In one session, a frontline employee shared a simple idea that reduced onboarding time by 30%. The impact? The leadership team invited him to co-present the new process across departments.

This is why activities to develop leadership skills must always include speaking up and idea sharing.

Initiative as an Organizational Muscle

We often tell our clients that building leadership capacity isn’t about a few heroes at the top. It’s about enabling leadership at all levels.

Here’s how organizations can build that muscle:

Encourage risk-taking (with safety nets)
Celebrate effort, not just outcomes
Provide basic leadership skills training early in people’s careers
Use activities to improve leadership skills like real-world simulations, job shadowing, and reverse mentoring

Over time, you’ll notice a shift. Teams become more self-driven. Managers spend less time firefighting. Ideas come from all corners.

That’s what initiative does.

Final Reflection: Are You Ready to Lead Without the Title?

So here’s the question: are you ready to act like Anita?

You don’t need a leadership title to lead. You just need the courage to step up, the humility to keep learning, and the mindset to treat every challenge as your own.

At FocusU, we’ve seen this transformation happen across roles, levels, and industries. One initiative at a time.

Let’s build workplaces where leadership isn’t reserved for the few, but nurtured in the many.

Because when people take initiative, teams thrive.

Related Read: 4 Common Leadership Mistakes