Have you ever wondered how the most successful business people in the United States became the most successful business people? Do they climb the corporate ladders just by hard work and persistence?

Hard work and persistence are definitely a key in becoming a successful leader in the business world, but it has been proven that these successful people have specific traits that differentiate themselves from others.

Becoming a leader does not come naturally for most people instead it is a learned skill. Understanding the best ways to motivate people to work and the best way to work yourself takes practice and some research.

The study of leaders has become a very popular topic to study in the academic world. The scientific minds want to understand what traits exist in leaders that enable them to climb to the top.

Some would argue that there are no specific traits that help push leaders to the top, but the scientific evidence proves that there are five specific innovation skills. These five skills will help the normal employee rise to the top.

The most innovated CEOs spend 50 percent more time practicing five specific innovation skills than do their less creative counterparts. The study that found this was conducted over a six-year period by three prominent business scholars.

The study did not concentrate on any small time CEOs. Instead they interviewed people like Amazon’s Jeff Bexos, eBay’s Pierre Omidyar and Michael Dell.

Understanding what has made these men so successful, may help others learn to push their career forward. Incorporating the five innovative traits will benefit the persons business and their personal career.

Jeffrey H. Dyer, lead author on the study and a professor at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management, Hal B. Gregersen of INSEAD and Clayton M. Christensen of Harvard Business School all set out to find what behaviors the CEOs engage in that triggers the new ideas that change their business.

The formation of the new idea was found to always come after a behavior. Whether they had posed a question, spoken to a colleague or done their own experiment, the CEOs ideas were always supported by a different behavior.

These five skills became known as the discovery skills. After sending out a survey to over 3,500 people who had started innovative companies or invented new products, the team analyzed the results with statistical tools to find which activities correlated with innovative ideas.

The first skill that came out of the study was the skill of questioning. Many would not recognize questioning as a skill that would help a leader, but it turns out that it is very important.

The influential businessmen were coming up with a lot more questions than the average executive. These questions were usually questions that challenged the status quo and sought change in what was normally accepted.

Questioning is not enough in and of itself. If a person sits at home and questions but has no drive for action, they are no better off.

The innovative leaders are very observant. They take the time to understand what is going on around them and what is going on in their field.

Experimenting was the next trait the study found to be prevalent in successful leaders. The leaders would take the opportunity to try new things, live in new countries and through the different experiences they would learn problem solving skills that were invaluable.

The leaders were also very good at networking, but they did not network to get access to resources or to market themselves. The men and women would simply connect with others to find and test new ideas.

This ability to meet new people that have new ideas and to listen to their ideas and learn from them widened the perspective of the men and women. They did not look at people and networking as a means to an end, but as an end in and of itself.

Finally, the men and women commonly practiced associating. They were able to associate commonly unassociated thoughts and tracks of mind.

The most successful men and women do not delegate their creative work, but instead they delegate their executing duties. Having others help in planning and analysis gave the successful leaders of the company the time to be innovative and creative.

Practicing these skills everyday will help you become more like the most successful CEOs of our time. Whether it is traveling to live in another country or writing down ten questions every day to help your questioning abilities, it is important to develop the necessary skills to lead.

Being in business is tough; there are many different skills that you need, however above all perhaps leadership is the most important. Leadership qualities are not something you are born with and therefore needs to be acquired if you are an aspiring business person. The skills can be easily acquired if you keep in mind a few basic things that are necessary for any kind of leadership, be it in business or otherwise. The success of any business enterprise depends on how efficient the manager or the owner is in terms of building up a work culture that is healthy as well as productive.

Any leader should have a vision for the job that he is managing. It is important to have the right kind of vision for this is extremely crucial in holding together the various aspects of the job. A misplaced vision will not only lead the employees astray but also ruin the whole business. A clear vision will get you started and also help you see the work through in a successful way.

A vision is something that the whole company works towards and it keeps them going until it is achieved.

Effective entrepreneurship will help the manager and his employees in realizing this vision. Ideas and opinions should be pooled in from all sides. This would make everyone feel a part of the whole enterprise. The manager should make sure that his employees are not merely skilled laborers who are there just to make money, but are committed to the vision of the company.

The manager should inspire and motivate the employees to work towards a common goal. The business would thus become a means to achieving these ends. This does not mean that the focus should entirely be on the results and not on the work itself. Each step taken by the employees should be carefully analyzed and the employees should be given feed back on how the work is progressing.

This would ensure expert quality as well as commendable results for the company. The leader should create a healthy atmosphere in the work area that provides the employees with the space and freedom to think freely and apply his imagination in getting the work done. A rigid system of work would alienate the employees from each other and from the leader. This would jeopardize the whole system and affect the vision of the company.

Any kind of business includes the target audience, which are the customers of the company. The leader should also focus on the customers by bringing out results that would reach out to a larger audience.