Leadership is a term widely used in management that characterizes the position of a person in a team. The leader is considered to be one who enjoys authority in a particular group, is able to lead the masses along, influence the decisions made by members of the group. Initially, the term was used in politics and political science, it was applied to heads of state, social and political movements. Later it began to be applied in the management of organizations.
Leader Features
Among modern managers there is an opinion that all leaders without exception, regardless of the size and types of groups of people headed by them, have more or less certain qualities. Despite the fact that understanding of this fact has firmly entered the consciousness of society, there are still various interpretations of these abilities, their different numbers.
Below are the top 10 most basic properties of a true leader:
- Honesty and high ethical qualities.
- Active life position, optimism.
- Purposefulness.
- Ambitiousness.
- Sociability.
- Self-confidence and self-reliance.
- Initiative.
- Charisma, the ability to lead people.
- High level of personal organization and responsibility.
- Judiciousness and sequence of actions.
This also includes the ability to quickly make informed decisions. Below we will familiarize ourselves with some of these qualities in more detail.
Where do these qualities come from?
Different sources talk about leadership qualities in different ways. Someone promotes the theory that you can only be born a leader, and someone that you can become one.
In fact, the development of the business education sector has proved that a leader can be grown, and a large number of factors influence the development of leadership qualities, from childhood experience to the need to defend one’s interests in adulthood.
Is it possible to do without these qualities
To become a leader, it is not necessary to possess the qualities developed to the maximum, at the beginning of the path they can only be makings, and their basic presence is mandatory. In some cases, the most developed one trait can replace the absence of another. But this is more an exception than a rule.
Each of personal qualities is necessary for a person to not only lead people, but also to defend his position in society.
In childhood and youth
It is possible to identify leadership qualities in a child from childhood on what kind of behavior he uses with his parents, how he defends his interests, what he is ready to do to get what he wants and, most importantly, how he behaves with his peers.
The manifestation of these traits depends on upbringing and living conditions, but it is impossible to dispute the fact that there are traits obtained from birth, because two children who grew up in identical conditions may turn out to be completely different people: someone will be the leader, and someone is one of the followers.
The greatest influence on further development is exerted by the leadership qualities of adolescents. If you let them develop, and not try to suppress the temper of a rebellious child by force, then to grow a successful person, the chances increase significantly.
How to develop leadership in a child
Children are the most malleable for forming leadership skills. It is possible to form such inclinations in a child without any special difficulties, working through each of these points, shaping his behavior so that it develops positive properties:
- You can teach a child honesty by encouraging the truth and not punishing mistakes made, but explaining why this or that action is wrong so that the baby does not want to lie.
- Ethical ideas about life can be obtained only if there is such an example nearby, therefore, parents who do not respect other people and do not have a sense of compassion should first of all have the question of developing this quality in themselves.
- An active life position and initiative should be constantly encouraged, children themselves are active from birth and take the initiative, you just need not to prevent this.
- Purposefulness in the child should be encouraged all the time. Any success must be maintained, thereby strengthening faith in the achievement of goals. And it doesn’t matter what it will be - a letter in calligraphic handwriting, a 100-meter race, an attempt to climb a tree or something else.
- Ambitiousness. Teach your child to raise the bar all the time: today I was able to run a hundred-meter race, help me understand that it is time to increase my goal and grow to a distance of 500 meters. Although it is small and victory was more an accident than a regularity, but an ambitious goal leads to the same results.
- Sociability. All the time the child should be accompanied by lively communication, the more people he sees, the more capable he is to start a conversation from the first minute, the better. Sociability is perhaps one of the key characteristics that allow the leader to be one.
- Charisma. Many parents often complain of violent imagination and stories of their children. Do not rush to conclusions. The ability to colorfully tell a story in adulthood will play a role, in adults this skill is much more appreciated, everyone loves people who speak beautifully.
Thus, almost everything that is prohibited in childhood and adolescence ultimately ruins the qualities of a true leader, which is why there are so few of them now. Parents should take care of how to develop leadership qualities in a child from his early childhood, then it is not difficult to grow a strong personality.
Is it possible to learn?
If everything is clear with the children, then what should we do for those who have already grown up and realized the need to be a leader? You can develop leadership features in yourself. You need to do this by moving in stages along all the described features and pumping each of them individually.
It is impossible to force an adult to develop in this path, leadership qualities require high responsibility and for the most part indicate a strong character, while many people want to live in a victim position and shift responsibility to others. Moreover, if the decision is made personally and there is an understanding of their shortcomings, then it is real to grow to the leader.
What qualities can you develop yourself
A person is able to develop all the described features independently, for this it is enough to clearly understand which qualities are lacking and which of them are poorly developed and require work on oneself.
For a quick result, it is best to draw up a plan for your development with a definition of weaknesses and methods for improving them. The following are basic daily activities that will help lay the foundation for leadership development.
Honesty in everything
A banal principle, but it carries a lot of weight for a true leader. People will not go after those whom they cannot trust. One single lie can ruin all the effort.
The concealment of the truth also refers to the forms of lies, therefore it is impossible to hide from the members of the group important information for its functioning. Sooner or later, any fact becomes publicly available, and the leader’s reputation suffers.
Self-control and self-control
Another basic principle. A nervous, embittered, and aggressive person cannot lead others. Learning to control yourself is always difficult, especially when there are a lot of irritants around. But it is necessary to do this, simply showing tolerance and loyalty to people.
High level of responsibility
For all decisions made, actions taken and their consequences, responsibility must be taken. The leader does not have the right to blame others or circumstances, always and in everything the responsibility lies with him.
Of course, it is easier to blame external factors than admit your mistakes, but gradually increasing your responsibility, a person can improve the quality of his life. A high level of self-commitment does not allow to give up on difficulties and turn off the intended path.
Decisive but balanced actions
All decisions need to be made quickly, action urgently, but it is worth considering what they can lead to, unjustified risk is rarely a source of luck.
Vera
The leader must believe in himself, his project and the success of his endeavors. If the leader does not have faith, the environment will not have it either. So that faith does not go out, but only grows, every day you need to single out an insignificant, but victory or your own achievement, and praise yourself for the result achieved.
Planning your time
The lack of a clear plan will inevitably lead to a shortage of time, effort and energy, as well as to a lack of understanding of what needs to be done. The result will be stress and unmet goals. The leader must plan everything, if the plans cannot be realized for any reason, they must either be reviewed or transferred.
Development
In addition to the competencies of a leader, you need to develop a personality, completely and constantly improving yourself. Interesting people will only be the one who knows more than they, who can be called an expert. Read more, attend cultural events more often, and quality will develop.
Work on networking and improving the quality of communication
The leader, as a rule, is forced to constantly contact with a large number of people. It is the improvement of communication skills that can lead to rapid growth.
Personality Development Techniques
For the development of leadership qualities of a person (like any other), you can use the following methods:
- Self-development - with an independent search for the necessary materials, their study and hone. The unambiguous plus of the method is accessibility, while the minus is no less significant, there is no feedback, which also takes a lot of time.
- Take a leadership training. The market of educational programs for adults has an extensive offer on this topic. The advantages of such training are obtaining information from experts and professionals, feedback during training, and working out weak points. Disadvantages - a chance to run into outright charlatans and not get the desired result, and recognized experts have a rather high training cost.
- Online training. Many educational resources offer online versions of their programs, which provide almost the same advantages as training, while they are much cheaper and do not have a time reference.
Is the leader and boss the same thing?
Only in an ideal management model does the boss act as a true leader. As a rule, the leader only controls the subordinates by the power of artificial authority, caused by the official rank. The leader, on the other hand, has a real authority among the employees, which is caused by his leadership qualities as a person, they trust him and are ready to follow him. Often in the team there are 2 separate managers - the head and leader of the group.
Companies that are transitioning to modern management models are increasingly placing the presence of leadership qualities of a leader as the main requirement for newly hired employees, since suppressing subordinates no longer brings the desired result.