Leadership Qualities

All great leaders have certain characteristics in common. Being a great leader has nothing to do with how you look or how you speak; leadership involves preparation and accepting responsibility, even when you don't want to. These skills are necessary to be a leader and motivate people to follow:

Embracing Responsibility

Embracing responsibility is an attitude:

• Drop the word “no” from your vocabulary.

  
  



• Learn to volunteer.

  
  



• Take an interest in people around you and learn to like people.

  
  



• Promise little — deliver a lot.

  
  

Eliciting Cooperation

Your goal is to have your followers trust you:

• Find out what people want — and why they want it.

  
  



• Figure out ways of trading what you have — the power of a leader — for what you need — the cooperation of your group.

  
  



• Smile at people and look them in the eye. It’s the start of trust, and trust is the beginning of cooperation.

  
  



• Share information with your team and keep them informed.

  
  

Visions

Leading starts with developing a vision:

• Visions are more than ideas. They are doable dreams.

  
  



• Visions link the present to the future.

  
  



• Use visions to inspire your followers to achieve more than they thought possible.

  
  



• Make your visions positive. Everyone wants to make the world a better place.

  
  

Planning

Planning is necessary if your team is to attain its goals. Keep these things in mind:

• Plan for every contingency — and remember that you can’t plan for every contingency.

  
  



• Leave a lot of wiggle room in your plans. When things go wrong, you can adjust.

  
  



• Make certain you have adequate resources. If you get into the lifeboat without food and water, be sure there’s someone on board who has the skill to get both.

  
  



• Plan for change. Be happy when it arrives.

  
  

Listening

Strive to take in as much information as you can:

• Pay attention to the nuances of what people say and how they say it.

  
  



• Pay attention to the needs of your group.

  
  



• Focus and concentrate — listen to only one person at a time.

  
  



• Learn to develop your own inner voice — and then learn to listen to it.

  
  



• Pay attention to the world around you. Seeing is a form of listening, and visual impressions are often the most powerful.

  
  



• Learn to hear the voices of the downtrodden. Their needs can become your cause.

  
  

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