6 Subtle Qualities That Make You A Great Person

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

We don’t always realize a great person in our lives until they are gone. The impression that they left on us. How they make us feel.

But one other way that hides under the surface is when other people comment on certain things when you bring them up.

This occurred to me when I was tutoring Sunday morning and I was talking to the student about my parents. She brought up that I sounded close to my parents and she’s right.

I am fairly close to my parents. After all, I think they are great people.

But that interaction really showed how great they are in my life.

Of course, parents ideally want to leave a lasting impression on their children. They’re a pretty important figure to how someone’s life shapes up to be.

But we run into these kinds of figures all over the place. People who, similar to our parents, leave a lasting impression influence our lives in various ways. They do this through a series of quirks or personality traits.

All of them work in tandem to leave a big impact on someone, to the point that they don’t realize it until later on in life.

The nice thing about these personality traits and quirks is that we can all do these things as well. For those we want a genuine connection with or to leave a positive impression, it’s a matter of practicing a variety of subtle tactics. Tactics such as the following:.

A Great Person Celebrates Others’ Victories

Celebrating others victories is one of those qualities we’ve all heard of before. It’s one of the first things being a good friend or having a personality people like.

It’s fairly standard.

However, there is a nuance to it. As much as it’s easy to say we should celebrate others victories, there are certain ways to go about it:

  • Lean into the emotions that you hear from the news. Express them fully.
  • Avoid making comments that downplay the achievement.
  • Simply be present with that person.

You Remember Small Details About Others

Previous conversations and small quirks you’ve noticed about other people can play a huge role in being a great person. The biggest reason is that we’re using our judgement skill for some genuine good.

We’re judgemental beings by nature. Our ancestors had to make snappy decisions on who was friend or foe and that often was based on facial features and impressions. We still do this, though more to size up an individual.

But that’s just surface level judging.

What makes a person great is working beyond that and using what we’ve noticed to bring details up. To use our judgement as remarks about a person and as a means of understanding them.

This is key because often, when judging others, we use that judgement to try to understand more about them. In other words, we create this loop in our minds where we use our own information to construct more and more of the impression of that person.

Even if that impression is false.

It’s not so different from racism, where one fits people of colour into a specific box and thinks all people of colour behave in a specific manner.

Even if you’re not racist yourself, you could be jumping to conclusions about someone for some other quality, similar to how someone racist would do racial profiling.

All of that gets broken when you remember small details about other people. When you look past surface level impressions and stereotypes and actually pay attention to the person. Not to mention the conversation you are having with that individual.

It makes a real difference since your judgement is based on information that’s coming directly from the source rather than yourself.

A Great Person Energizes Those Around Them

Whether it’s talking, sitting down for coffee, or doing some other activity, you’re great if people feel great around you. This is another quirk that makes the list of “good friend” qualities to have as well, but obtaining it can be tricky.

Generally, you want to:

  • Put people at ease and make people feel welcome when spending time around you. This can look like respecting people’s boundaries, giving them space, and paying attention to them.
  • Make the conversations productive and engaging. Asking questions, listening intently, troubleshooting problems, and asking “what’s next?” in certain situations. Things like that.

At the end of the day, you want people to walk away with a clearer mind, however that may be. We’ve all got problems, and so leaning into that fact can be a great way to become a great person and facilitate helping others.

Be it directly or indirectly.

You Listen Without Being Defensive

Truly great people have nothing to prove but they have everything to show.

Often times, when we get defensive about something, it’s to protect what we believe and to steer people in that direction. We want to not only steer the conversation but also steer the way the other person is thinking.

We’re free to believe what we want to believe, but the game changes when we are listening to other people and figuring out how to be a great person.

When we listen, our goal shouldn’t be to coach them or steer them unless one is specifically asked to (i.e. “What should I do?”, “What do you think about this?”) or we are tasked with doing so (i.e. You’re hired as a consultant, coach, or you’re instructing students). That said, it’s easier for us to do that, as it makes us feel like we’re part of the conversation when we provide our own two cents on the matter.

Even when it’s not needed or warranted.

This is a distinguishing mark between good and great people. Instead of blurting out what they think, they pause, listen, and speak plainly. They are just bystanders looking in and they behave as such.

They show rather than tell.

You Make Others Feel Safe

From the point of view of energizing individuals, you want to make sure others feel safe around you. A welcoming atmosphere and other personality traits can feed into this overall atmosphere, but a great person does more than that.

They make people feel needed and wanted.

They allow people to contribute and ensure they get a turn in conversations.

They show they genuinely care about the individual.

You Create An Authentic Atmosphere

All of these personality traits lead into this one technique that great people simply do. It’s a subtle tactic that leaves a good impression and a list of great things about that person afterwards.

It encourages people to spend more time around that individual, even when they don’t know the exact reason.

And that’s okay, because the reasons are vast.

All of them culminate in an authentic atmosphere where people are allowed to be who they want to be. They’re given ease and comfort in knowing that they can simply be themselves around you and say what’s needed to be said without any worry.

And all of that makes you a great person.


Like me, we can think of particular people in our lives who make us feel this way. And every single time, these individuals are likely using these tactics or similar ones. All they are doing is creating an atmosphere where we can feel comfortable talking about what is going on or talking about something you’re passionate about, and they are listening and giving a damn about what you have to say.

It’s as simple and straightforward as it sounds, but it’s harder to implement than one thinks. There are a lot of nuances and way more personality traits than what I’ve listed. However, we can all be great people in our own way the more of these traits we pick up.


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