Becoming a Leader

For thousand years, leaders have always been the most valuable asset in any community. These days, in the absence of a strong leader, no company, business or organisation can thrive and that is because they are the ones who can achieve sustainable success for any of them. Leadership is what helps everyone be the best they can be. Leadership is what gives people hope for a better tomorrow.

But being a leader is not easy and there are certain steps you need to take to become on. Below you can read more about some of these steps.

1.You need to learn how to lead yourself first

The process of Becoming Leader starts with you and arguably the most difficult obstacle to overcome when wanting to become one is learning how to lead yourself. This requires the most determination, commitment and discipline, but at the same time it’s also the aspect which will help you reap the largest rewards.

2.Lead by example

If you really want to brand yourself as a fine leader, then you need to learn how to lead your example. For instance, in any company, everything always starts at the top and the tempo you decide to set in that organisation is going to influence the way everyone working in it is going to interact with one another and anyone coming in contact with the organisation. 

On the other hand, by the same token, if you are to lose your temper in front of anyone in the company, be it business partner or employee, don’t be surprised if your employees also react the same way towards others. The reason they do that is because they deem it acceptable.

3.Sense of humor

If either funding dries up, you lost an important client or your company’s website goes offline, it is essential that you remain calm and try to find solutions to fix this. Morale is directly connected to productivity, it’s your responsibility as a leader to make sure that even in times of stress, you can easily break the tension by poking fun at problems. By always finding humor in challenges, your team will look forward to solving them instead of panicking or feeling desperate and lost.

4.Casting your vision

Regardless of how strong your persuasion and leadership skills are, if you don’t have a vision, then your company is going nowhere. In fact, the main traits that separate leaders from the rest is their innate ability of finding their way and knowing where to go two, five, ten and even twenty five years from now. They always have a great sense of purpose, a great plan that helps them achieve their goals and can easily communicate this to everybody else.

While having a vision is necessary, the leader needs to be able to vividly and clearly communicate it to everybody else in a convincing way that will compel them to follow him. If they don’t believe in this vision, they won’t follow the leader.

5.Strong interpersonal skills

Leaders need to have excellent interpersonal skills and basically be the people’s people. If they don’t know how to interact with others, then they won’t lead anybody. Persuading and interacting with others is both art and science. Therefore includes:

Empowering others – when you can influence someone to the point where he or she will reach their highest potential, that is when that person is going to follow you no matter where you go. If you can show them why they were born and who they are to become and eventually give them the helping hand they need to get there, that person will certainly follow you for life.

Motivating others – if you want someone to do something, then you need to speak in terms of their wants and needs. Tell them exactly what they’ll get by doing this and that and remember that leadership is not about coercion. Therefore, ordering people around is not a good idea.

Understanding others – in other to persuade or influence someone, you first of all need to understand him. Its only when you know what that person needs, fears and wants that you can make them react in the way you want them to react. Since being a leader is all about people management, its vital that you can see a situation from different perspectives besides yours.

So having said all of that, are leaders born or bred? The truth is that most of the times they are, but there is also a small percentage (10% to 15%) that learns how to be a leader along the way. This small percentage can sometimes even have skills that surpass those of naturally born leaders. However, this is another topic that we’ll talk about next time.