Leaders are a scarce resource in the business environment – managers come at twenty to the dozen. Leaders inspire people with an emotional desire to follow them with enthusiasm and fervour. They automatically extract the best out of their followers – even when they are not physically present with their teams.
Can you go away for 3 months and return to find your business stronger than when you left? If you can honestly answer ‘yes’, the chances are that you are a leader. Hone your skills and nothing in this world can prevent you from achieving great success. If your answer was ‘no’, then you should sit down and take a long, cold, hard look at yourself – and identify where you need to change! Your displayed enthusiasm for your cause is a good starting point.
Over the last few decades society has shown distinct signs of becoming a moral desert. Value systems are not what they used to be, and common decency and manners seem to be regarded as undesirable. Surely then, this creates the ideal opportunity for anyone with determination, initiative, enthusiasm, and imagination to rise above the masses and turn themselves into a highly valuable resource – a leader! You can do it if you believe you can!
What must you do to become a leader? What are the attributes of leadership and how do you cultivate them? Here are the basic elements. Master these and you will start to gather immediate dividends:
Self-Confidence: This stems from accurate knowledge. You can bluff some of the people some of the time, but you cannot bluff all the people all the time. There is no substitute for accurate knowledge, but you must be able to impart that knowledge to others. Communicate well by putting your thoughts precisely into words.
Exercise self-control, display physical vitality, endurance and above all a moral force. Never ‘fly off the handle’ and you will not have any need to ever apologise. Control your emotions.
Moral Force: Live cleanly. Have the intelligence to see the right thing to do and have the will to do it. Be an example to others and live the life you would like others to lead. Remember that your business reflects you.
Self-Sacrifice: Give, give, give. Give of yourself all the time. You will have to give of yourself physically, for the longest hours, the hardest work, and the greatest responsibility. You will give of yourself mentally, in sympathy and in appreciation for the efforts of those who work with you. Take responsibility for the investment you make in improving your attitude towards others.
Paternalism: This point manifests itself in watchful care for the comfort and welfare of those in your charge. Do not expect others to do, or accept, things that you are not prepared to do or accept. Place their interests before your own and in so doing they will automatically take care of your best interests.
Fairness: Study the personalities of all those who work for you and treat each one with equal respect. Ensure each gets proper reward. Give credit where credit is due. A leader does not steal the ideas and actions of another. Do not be overbearing and insulting.
Initiative: Things never work strictly according to plan. There will always be some curve balls you will have to face. Prepare yourself for these by studying beforehand the possible situations that might arise and make tentative plans covering each situation. When you see events unfolding take the initiative to counter the threats. You must have sufficient mental alertness to appreciate the problem that confronts you and the power of quick reasoning to determine what changes are necessary to your plan.
Decisiveness: It is better to do something and do the wrong thing than to hesitate. Hunt around for the right thing to do and wind up doing nothing at all. Having decided on the line of action, stick to it. Don’t vacillate. People have no confidence in a person who doesn’t know their own mind! If you have prepared yourself to meet emergencies, the mental training you will have gained will enable you to act promptly and with calmness.
Dignity: Don’t cheapen yourself by courting the friendship of people under you or currying their favour. Your people should stand in awe and not in fear! Do not allow them to become familiar with you. If they do, it is your own fault, not theirs. Likewise, do not become familiar with others. Maintain the appropriate degree of aloofness and personal dignity in all your business dealings and people will learn to respect you.
Courage: You need both moral and mental courage. Every time you change your orders and decisions without obvious reason, you weaken your authority and compromise the confidence of your people. Have the moral courage to stand by your decisions and see them through, at the same time accepting responsibility for your actions. Don’t make a subordinate the scapegoat for some disaster.
Personal Integrity: Do not allow yourself to be deflected from a strict sense of justice by feelings of personal friendship. Your aim is the general good, not the satisfaction of some individual grudge. Treat others better than you expect them to treat you and you will always get paid more than you paid for.
Whilst we have discussed here the traits of an individual, each applies with equal importance to the way in which any business should handle its customers. Lead your customers by displaying these traits and not only will they follow you, but they will reward you with unswerving loyalty!
QUOTATION: No man may become an accurate thinker until he learns how to separate mere gossip and information from facts.
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