Some of the qualities may come natural, some you may have to learn. I will share the major ones in no particular order.

#1 Emotional Intelligence (EQ): If you are going to run your business successfully, your EQ must be top notch. EQ is the ability to control your own emotion and also manage that of others. One of the major keys to business success is handling interpersonal relationships. You will be dealing with all kinds of people from different background, culture, ideologies and temperament. However, you must be able to manage all these people in order to achieve your business goals and objectives.

#2 The BFI skills: This simply means the business, financial and investment management skills. The business management skills will help you make accurate business decision and profits. The financial management skills will give you understanding and control over your money. The investment management skills will help you understand how to multiply your money. If you are making money in business and you can’t account for it, then your financial and investment management skills are poor. If you make money in business and have it saved up in a bank, then you have both business and financial management skills, but you don’t have the investment management skills. You need the three of them to build business and wealth.

#3 Ability to lead: Not everyone can lead, and that doesn’t mean you can’t become a successful CEO. You may just need to have a partner that can play the role of a leader beside you. However, to be a successful CEO, you must know how to lead the team towards achieving the objectives of your business. You must a frontline person with the ability to encourage and communicate effectively with others. You must know how to discover people, tap into their potentials and get them to do exactly what you want from them.

#4Salesmanship: Salesmanship is a very important quality of successful CEOs that you must have. This is simply to know how to convince people to buy what you are selling or persuade them to do what you want them to do. Like hypnotizing their audience, each successful CEO has his or her style of salesmanship, which allows people to buy into whatsoever such is selling. For Oprah Winfrey, it is the tears in her eyes when the guests are in tears, and of course the Oprah Couch also added to the Oprah effect.

#5 Showmanship: This is another rare quality of successful CEOs that differentiates them from others. Showmanship is the ability to entertain or show theatrical presentation or performance. It is like the “swag” thing or what some call the “eccentric nature”. This quality positions successful CEOs in such way that their audience fall in love with them and then create a brand persona around them. A good example is Richard Branson the rebel billionaire who is also the founder of Virgin Group, a global brand with over 400 companies under it.