Leadership Essentials
Qualities of Leadership
Everyone wants to be a better leader. Unfortunately, many people are unable to identify the specific qualities of leadership. Since these men and women do not know what leadership qualities are, it is far more challenging to acquire these attributes because they don't have a target at which to aim.
Over the next few weeks you will discover six of the most important qualities or skills you need to develop or improve in yourself in order to become an excellent leader. The six I have chosen are Vision, Productivity, Innovation, Intellectual curiosity, Courage and my favourite, Integrity.
VISION
Being a great leader begins with a Vision. You must have a purpose and a mission. Vision also involves the crucial questions of who you are and where you want to go. These are questions that only you can answer. Vision means knowing what has to be done to bring out your best.
In business, vision requires the devising of a strategy, for it is strategy that gives you the energy and momentum that will move you toward success.
Another name for this strategy is a Mission Statement. It is a declaration of where you want to go and how you plan to get there. Although vision leads to the creation of your mission statement, it is your mission statement that makes your vision real, set in concrete.
It is important to understand that this mission statement be written in such a way that anyone could understand it, with no need for complicated descriptions, just a simple statement of fact.
In the very best of organisations, it is not just the leader who has a mission statement. Everyone must decide that he or she is going to be the very best at what they are called to do. A great leader can set the example, showing the way to make the vision real.
To be a true leader, you need followers. The best way I know to produce followers is to give them someone and something worth following.
Leaders Produce more than they consume
The second vital quality a leader must develop is a productive, results-oriented attitude. While it may be true that people who feel good about themselves produce good results, it is most certainly true that people who produce good results feel good about themselves.
Everybody needs to be geared into results. How will you know when a goal is achieved? How will you measure that achievement? Goals don't make sense unless they can be measured or are a means by which other people can tell whether or not you are doing a great job.
Business owners, managers and sales executives should ask questions focusing on key results. The secret of a leader's effectiveness is isolating one or two tasks, key results areas, that they can do that no one else can. These specialties, if done well, will make an extraordinary difference to a leader's, and in turn, an organisation's success.
Ask yourself "What can I do that no one else can do?" Once you have the answer, plan on doing those things and delegate everything else to some one else.
Innovative Leaders Challenge the Status Quo
Innovation is another quality of a great leader, who is constantly seeking ways to improve things, always challenging the way things are. They know they are currently doing could soon be obsolete, so they have a back up strategy ready to go, just in case. There is but one constant, some would say, that you can be assured of, and that is CHANGE. The five best products and services around the world 3 years from now have not even been invented yet.
What does the issue of change mean, to you as a leader, and to your organisation?
If, while you are managing the present for results, you are not also keeping an eye on where you are going, you can head into trouble.
Innovation is simply a commitment to continuous improvement. With this commitment, your breakthrough ideas will inevitably come.
Think of one task central to the responsibility you have in your current role. Describe the process, either mental or physical, you use to complete this task. How is this process different to how it was six months or a year ago? What changes or adjustments could you make to this process in the future?
Change for change sake is mostly unproductive. Change for continuous improvement is vital in your personal leadership and in leading others!
