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Leadership Traits:
Justice, Judgement, Dependability (previously addressed), Initiative, Decisiveness, Tact, Integrity, Endurance, Bearing, Unselfishness, Courage, Knowledge, Loyalty, and Enthusiasm.
Of the fourteen leadership traits, initiative is the one that will decide who is a follower and who is ready for more. Initiative is taking action even though you haven't been specifically told, but know it needs to be done. When we can meet new and unexpected situations with an immediate and expedient response, possibly without the normal material or methods being available to us, we are ready to be in front.
To improve initiative, one can work on staying mentally and physically alert. Be aware of things that need to be done and then to do them without having to be told.
Situational awareness and how things operate add to our ability to independently take action, in lieu of orders, to gain advantage in reaching a group goal when an unforeseen opportunity appears.
In its simplest form, initiative allows that something that is supposed to be accomplished by someone else, but hasn't been, will be taken care of, and not ignored.
I am reminded of the old story of Whose Job is it Anyway?
There were four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.
Ironically, Nobody showed initiative, though it wasn't his/her job, to make sure it was done anyway.
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