Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.

Many potential employers put this requirement directly in their help-wanted ads: “Must be a self-starter.” This is, apparently, an all-too-unusual trait.

Perhaps more than any other trait, initiative separates the successful from the failure, the winner from the loser, the prosperous from the poor. A person with initiative does not wait to be told to do something, does not sit back and blame others for his lack of progress, but steps up and gets going.

It was C. Northcote Parkinson who said, “The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.”

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