What does it take to be a leader? Leadership is not about personality or knowing the goal in advance. A true leader has character, and is open to ideas from everyone. The American Management Association gives some good bullet points on leadership:
· Have a passion for excellence and hate bureaucracy
· Are open to ideas from everywhere
· Live quality…and drive cost and speed for competitive advantage
· Have the self-confidence to involve everyone and behave in a “boundary-less” fashion
· Create a clear, simple, reality-based vision
· Have enormous energy and the ability to energize others
· Stretch…set aggressive goals…reward progress…yet understand accountability and commitment
· See change as opportunity…not threat
· Have global brains…and build diverse and global teams (AMA)
Mark Ernsberger adds to these bullet points in a speech he gave to “40 under 40″, in Greensboro, North Carolina, in March of 2000. He states:
“A leader must have good self-awareness. This means nothing more complex than having a clear understanding of what a person does well and what he or she does not do well.
Leadership cannot be learned from a book. Books do not tell you what you are doing wrong. They just tell you what someone else did right. Leadership cannot be learned overnight. It is a continual learning process that began with dealing with your siblings in the family or neighborhood children and was honed by tough experience. Leadership is learning how to deal with pressure in a positive way. A leader inspires, excites, and molds the common beliefs and experiences of his or her followers into a common belief.
A great leader has passion, and the courage to express it. A leader has clear, realistic goals and steals freely from those he or she admires. In this case, stealing is an admirable activity. The best leaders know they can never know enough and they never will know everything they need. A good leader has the self-confidence to trust his followers.
A good leader is willing to listen, especially when being told something he or she does not want to hear. Feedback on a regular basis is critical to improving leadership.
A good leader must be adaptable and able to deal with change. He or she must have an understanding of the psychology of managing change.” (Ernsberger, 2000)
In order to improve these leadership skills, managers must be willing to take risks, be innovative, take charge, and maintain a positive attitude. Additionally, they must have the courage to challenge existing power bases and go beyond defined limitations. Leadership is a behavior, not a title.
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Your message is concise, yet full of important points.
Well done.