Share this
5 Leadership Traits of Great Business Analysts - Adaptive US
by Laura Brandenburg on Mar 28, 2019 12:00:00 AM
One of the greatest opportunities in the progression of your business analysis career is to step into leadership roles. While leadership can mean the actual leading of a team or managing of a department, it doesn’t have to mean either of these roles.
As business analysts, we can be leaders from within our role as individual contributors on a project team. We are a profession of problem-solving change agents. We are consistently and diligently creating positive change.
Let’s look at 5 leadership traits of great business analysts.
#1 – Continually Step Up and Step In
Great business analysts continually step up and take on new responsibilities. This doesn’t mean that you have to wear every hat available in the organization (and doing so could actually be detrimental to your career progression), but it does mean that you look for opportunities within your zone of genius to work at a higher level.
For example, if you see your sponsor getting stuck defining the business needs for a project, you jump in and help. You might go back and help them analyze the business process so they can more clearly see the true business problem that needs to be solved.
This is stepping up by working directly with a sponsor on a high-level project task. It is also stepping in by turning a roadblock into an opportunity.

#2 – Take Personal Responsibility of Your Results
Great business analysts also take personal responsibility for their results – the good and the bad. Whether it’s a missed requirement that delays a project or a problem identified and solved before it derails a project, we take ownership of our results.
- In the case of a missed requirement, we jump in and figure out what’s missing and how to fix it, and then make improvements to our business analysis process so that the mistake doesn’t happen going forward.
- In the case of a problem we identified and solved early on, we let our manager know about our win and celebrate our success. Often these situations involve speaking up and pressing forward with what we know to be true, even in the face of resistance. So these wins are worth celebrating!
And that leads me to our next trait about the value of business analysts.

#3 – Understand Your Value
Great business analysts understand their value and work from their value every single day. I fully realize that in many environments it can seem like stakeholders, management, and even team members don’t understand what we do and why we do it.
That’s an external reality. Great business analysts take personal responsibility for that situation as well, and take ownership of continually communicating the what and why of what they are doing until they break through organizational barriers to success.
This also means that when they catch themselves doing a low-value activity, like endlessly tweaking their models instead of getting out and reviewing them with stakeholders, they stop.
Understanding our value means we are always expanding into more value, and finding ways to be more effective and efficient with our work.
#4 – Cultivate Abundance Mindset
One of the absolute keys to my success is to cultivate an abundance mindset. I don’t pretend to be perfect, but I make a diligent effort to recognize where I’m viewing the world from a place of scarcity and shift my perspective.
A few of the core principles of abundance include generosity, possibility, and vision. This means we look more at what’s possible, instead of focusing on what’s not. We are generous with our time and energy because we trust that what we give will come back to us in turn.
This doesn’t mean you can be a pushover – boundaries are incredibly important for us to be successful – but it does mean that we always look at problems with the intention of finding a solution. We look at the world as a place of opportunity.

#5 – Mentor Other Business Analysts
Finally, great business analysts mentor other business analysts. When other team members need help or get stuck solving difficult project challenges, they help them navigate the waters. They share what has worked for them, and what hasn’t.
They are continually sharing resources with their team, and often are the ones starting communities of practice, peer review circles, or knowledge sharing platforms.
Part of having an abundance mindset means you believe in helping others because a rising tide lifts all ships.
Being a Business Analyst Leader
There are many ways to be a business analyst leader. You are adding more value to the world and creating more abundance, each and every day you show up in your full strength as a business analyst.
What change will you make to cultivate your leadership abilities as a business analyst?
Share this
- Business analysis (135)
- CBAP (41)
- Business analysis skill (34)
- CBAP Certification (32)
- #CCBA (31)
- Career (29)
- ECBA (22)
- #AdaptiveUS (20)
- #BA Certification (18)
- #BA (16)
- IIBA Certifications (16)
- BABoK (15)
- #IIBA (14)
- #AdaptiveUS #BusinessAnalysis (13)
- Uncategorized (13)
- Most Popular (12)
- Announcements (11)
- cbap certification training (11)
- Requirement engineering (10)
- #CBAP_Certification (8)
- #LNMishra (8)
- countdowns (8)
- #BA Skills (7)
- CPRE (7)
- Press Release (7)
- #BA Techniques (6)
- #BusinessAnalysis (6)
- #CCBA_Certification (6)
- #Elicitation (6)
- #AdaptiveUS #BusinessAnalysis #BA #BABoK (5)
- #PressRelease (5)
- #business analyst (5)
- #Business_Analysis (4)
- #ECBA_Certification (4)
- #Requirements engineering (4)
- #cbap_exam_ preparation_tips (4)
- #certifications #AdaptiveUS #BusinessAnalysis #BA (4)
- Business analysis certification training (4)
- Most Recent (4)
- #AdaptiveRocks (3)
- #BA_Certification (3)
- #IIBA Membership (3)
- cbap certification cost (3)
- cbap certification course (3)
- cbap training certification online (3)
- #LearnwithLN (2)
- Business analysis study guides (2)
- CCBA Recertification (2)
- CPOA (2)
- businessanalyst (2)
- cbap question banks (2)
- cbap study guide (2)
- ecba question banks (2)
- ecba study guide (2)
- #AAC (1)
- #AgileBA (1)
- #BAOT (1)
- #BATrends (1)
- #BridgingtheGap (1)
- #ECBA #IIBA #IIBAWorkshop #Certification (1)
- #IIBA #Agile (1)
- #IIBAEgyptChapter (1)
- #IREB (1)
- #NFR (1)
- #OneWorksGroup (1)
- #Partnership (1)
- #SimpleSim (1)
- #ba #businessanalysis #jobdescription #adaptiveus (1)
- #performancemetrics (1)
- Adaptive US (1)
- Agile BA (1)
- Artificial Intelligence (1)
- Awesome BA (1)
- BABoKV3 based certification (1)
- BACOE (1)
- CBAP Certification Tips (1)
- CBAP Exam Preparation (1)
- CBAP Exam Tips (1)
- CBAP Preparation Tips (1)
- CBAP certification preparation (1)
- CBDA (1)
- ECBA Certification steps (1)
- ECBA V3 certification (1)
- ECBA certificate (1)
- From our Archive (1)
- IIBA CBAP Certification (1)
- KPI (1)
- PMI PBA (1)
- PMP vs CBAP (1)
- Requirements Management (1)
- Scrum (1)
- Scrum rules (1)
- Transitioning to BA (1)
- bajobs (1)
- cbap e-learning (1)
- cbap training material (1)
- ccba certification training online (1)
- ccba or cbap certification (1)
- conflicts resolution techniques (1)
- iiba ecba online course (1)
- productowner (1)
- stakeholders (1)
- testing (1)
- what is scrum? (1)
- May 2023 (2)
- April 2023 (4)
- March 2023 (3)
- February 2023 (5)
- January 2023 (1)
- December 2022 (4)
- November 2022 (3)
- October 2022 (2)
- September 2022 (4)
- August 2022 (3)
- July 2022 (4)
- June 2022 (8)
- May 2022 (4)
- April 2022 (7)
- March 2022 (6)
- February 2022 (1)
- January 2022 (1)
- December 2021 (2)
- November 2021 (4)
- October 2021 (4)
- September 2021 (2)
- August 2021 (4)
- July 2021 (4)
- June 2021 (2)
- May 2021 (1)
- April 2021 (1)
- March 2021 (4)
- February 2021 (2)
- January 2021 (3)
- December 2020 (3)
- November 2020 (3)
- October 2020 (3)
- September 2020 (5)
- August 2020 (8)
- July 2020 (3)
- May 2020 (5)
- April 2020 (2)
- March 2020 (7)
- February 2020 (6)
- January 2020 (4)
- December 2019 (1)
- November 2019 (3)
- October 2019 (5)
- September 2019 (3)
- August 2019 (2)
- July 2019 (4)
- June 2019 (2)
- May 2019 (3)
- April 2019 (6)
- March 2019 (3)
- February 2019 (8)
- January 2019 (7)
- December 2018 (8)
- November 2018 (6)
- October 2018 (8)
- September 2018 (11)
- August 2018 (11)
- July 2018 (23)
- June 2018 (12)
- May 2018 (19)
- April 2018 (11)
- February 2018 (1)
- January 2018 (3)
- December 2017 (1)
- November 2017 (5)
- October 2017 (2)
- September 2017 (2)
- August 2017 (30)
No Comments Yet
Let us know what you think