Are you good enough for becoming Leader? (Effective Leaders)
Table of Contents (Effective Leaders)
∘ 1. The first principle of leadership is awareness. ∘ 2. The second principle of leadership is balance. ∘ 3. The third principle of leadership is “self-confidence”. ∘ 4. The fourth principle of leadership is humility.
(Effective Leaders) A leader is a person who makes positive changes in the lives of the people they lead. A true leader thinks first and foremost about the welfare of the people he or she leads.
The essence of leadership is to serve people, to improve their lives.
To be a leader, one does not necessarily need to lead a team, a company or a country.
There are situations in life where almost everyone is a leader in one way or another.
When a person strives to make other people better — even in an ordinary situation — that is true leadership.
When he or she gets together with friends or family, when he or she leads the group in a way that benefits everyone, that is leadership.
In fact, any situation where two or three people come together is an opportunity for leadership.
Leadership, in its simplest definition, is influencing people to take the necessary steps for their own benefit, to move them in the right direction. (Jim Anderson)
So, what qualities does a person need to have in order to be useful to other people?
Harry M. Jansen Kraemer Jr. says that for a leader to be useful to people, he or she must adopt four basic principles; all effective leaders possess these four characteristics.
According to Kreamer, anyone who wants to can take important steps towards leadership by developing these qualities that already exist in themselves.
1. The first principle of leadership is awareness.
All leaders are highly aware people. They know their weaknesses and strengths. They are very honest with themselves.
They are very clear in their minds about the things they want to do, and the goals they want to achieve.
They manage their time and priorities very well because they are aware of the values that drive their lives.
They understand which information is important and which is not, and they have no difficulty in making decisions.
They have a clear mind when deciding how much time to devote to their families and how much time to devote to which tasks in the companies they manage.
Knowing oneself is a virtue and only a person who knows himself/herself knows his/her weaknesses and strengths well and can manage himself/herself can manage others.
On the contrary, a person with low self-awareness, who does not know the reasons for his anger or joy, appreciation or criticism, who does not base his decisions on principles, cannot lead.
Leaders have questions they constantly ask themselves. These questions are part of their daily lives:
-Was what I did today what I really wanted to do? Was I able to do what I planned?
-Was there anything I did because I had to? What were the reasons for that?
-Was there anything I wanted to do but couldn’t? If so, why? When can I do it?
-How did I treat people? Did I behave in ways that were not like me? Is there something I need to fix?
-Is there anything important I learned today? If so, how will this affect my decisions tomorrow?
Mindful leaders ask themselves these questions regularly, every day. If they have attitudes and behaviour they want to change, they put them into practice.
They provide guidance for people, starting with those closest to them. Every self-aware leader helps other people to discover their own values.
2. The second principle of leadership is balance.
Balance is a very important concept that a person must understand and practice. Many important issues such as work, rest, justice and sustainability are based on the concept of balance.
The Balance enables a multi-faceted view of events and situations from all angles.
A true leader listens to and evaluates opposing views while asserting his or her own.
When leading a discussion, he/she ensures that all relevant views are considered and discussed.
When making a decision on an issue, he/she takes into account all the parties that will be affected by that decision.
While working for today, he/she also thinks about tomorrow.
While protecting the interests of their own company, they also consider the welfare of all stakeholders and society.
True leaders know that they cannot have all the information and answers to every question; they are ready to benefit from the views of others and can easily revise their own views and adopt a superior idea.
Leadership is not about being right, but about getting the right things done. Leaders who have fully internalized the concept of balance focus on doing the right things.
Leaders who internalize balance as a concept and manage every aspect of their lives with this principle have a holistic approach between themselves and others, today and tomorrow, and live a satisfying and balanced life.
3. The third principle of leadership is “self-confidence”.
Self-confident people are people who accept themselves as they are and are at peace with themselves.
They know their strengths and weaknesses and do not hesitate to express their weaknesses and are open to continuous learning and development.
They know in which fields they are competent and in which fields there are people much more competent than themselves.
They are happy to work with people who are smarter, more intelligent, more talented and more successful than themselves.
Confident people do not hesitate to say what they think. When a topic is being discussed, they do not speak to please others, but to express what they think and convey their own ideas to those who are listening.
They do not hesitate to change their opinions if there is a better option.
But under no circumstances do they put forward an idea they do not believe in, in order to please people above them or those who depend on them.
Being open to listening to other people’s ideas as well as expressing one’s own out loud, and changing one’s own mind when necessary, is something that only confident people can do.
Confidence is not limited to expressing one’s own opinion, of course.
Self-confidence is the belief that no matter what happens to you in life, you will continue on your own path or find new paths.
Life is not all beauty and goodness for anyone. Everyone can fail and everyone can experience “disasters” — in their own way — in life.
Confident people are those who know how to get up and move on when they fall. The most important characteristic of leaders in their determination to keep going.
4. The fourth principle of leadership is humility.
One should never forget who one is and where one comes from; one should respect the value of every human being and recognize that everyone has rights.
No matter how high one rises, no matter how high a position one holds, one must always be accessible and open to everyone.
Being humble means that when one achieves success, one should not neglect the people who contributed to this success.
Being humble means being aware that luck has as much to do with one’s success as other people’s contributions and expressing this out loud.
People with humility do not change their attitudes and behaviours when they are successful.
They do not get intoxicated by success and get out of their own personality.
They dominate their egos.
The rank a person reaches in a job, the position he/she attains, is not a characteristic that determines his/her personality. Humble people become kinder when they rise up.
These four qualities that effective leaders possess are, in fact, traits that everyone already possesses, to a greater or lesser extent. Anyone — if they show determination — can develop these traits and move towards leadership.