What Does Leadership Mean to You
A question for the ages: Are leaders born, or can they be made?
People have debated this question throughout history. For generations now, modern researchers have studied the question. The debate goes on, even though the more practical among us already know the answer.
The Answer is Yes.
It turns out to be that both questions are valid, as are both answers. Great leaders are generally of the “born” variety, but nearly anyone can learn to become an effective leader. Part of it depends on what leadership means to you. Knowing the type of leadership that you are looking for will help you develop effective leadership skills for your life and work.
Great Leaders are Born
It seems that there is one quality that a person needs to be born with in order to become an effective leader. Intelligence. A leader needs to be smart enough to manage the responsibilities.
An effective leader doesn’t need to be among the smartest people in the room but they have to be smart enough to accomplish the role they have been assigned. What’s more important is what kind of person the potential leader is when they become an adult. The person who emerges from high school into adulthood has many of the psychological and character traits they will demonstrate for the rest of their life. Many of these qualities matter when it comes to leadership skills.
By the time a person becomes an adult we can tell if they are willing to help other people achieve results. That is what we expect from our leaders. Leaders are expected to achieve success through managing the actions of a group. Leaders are expected to help their team members grow and develop.
This quality is essential. People who are willing to put others first can then learn the other skills it takes for them to become effective leaders.
But (you knew that was coming, didn’t you) no matter what level of intelligence and charm a person is born with, no one comes into this world with all of the skills that they need to become an effective leader. Everybody has to learn the job. That’s why leaders are always made.
Leaders are Always Made
Leadership can be learned by anyone with the basic qualifications. Yet there is quite a bit of the leadership skill set that cannot be taught. That is because leadership is an on the job training course.
- Potential leaders learn from watching other leaders and modeling their actions and behavior.
- Potential leaders choose role models and seek out mentors.
- Potential leaders ask other leaders about how to handle difficult or unfamiliar situations.
- Potential leaders improve by getting feedback and using it. The best leaders seek feedback from their boss, their peers and their subordinates. Then they modify their behavior so that they get better results.
- Potential leaders learn by doing new things and then analyzing their performance.
Skill Traits of Effective Leaders
Effective leaders take control of their own personal and professional development. This means to seek out training opportunities, in structured classes or on their own, that will lead to an improvement in their performance.
To take responsibility for your own leadership development, you should build a support structure for yourself that includes at least the following traits:
- Make use of the fact that most leadership training happens on the job. Learn from those around you and from your own mistakes.
- Create your own leadership development plan. Select specific skills training that you can get from courses or books, then be disciplined about using those skills in your daily work.
- Find and recruit a Mentors that you can discuss your development with in an honest and open environment.
- Solicit feedback from your boss, your peers and your team members. Develop your emotional bank account to cultivate a culture of openness and trust that will make that feedback meaningful and effective.
A Leader’s Work (and Development) is Never Done
Make sure that you evaluate your own developing leaders on their leadership work. Praise and reward them publicly when they get it right. Hold these developing leaders accountable for accomplishing their tasks through the group, and coach them in private.
Cultivate the same accountability in your developing leaders in urging them to care for their people. Developing leaders should be learning from your example that leadership is not about putting yourself first. It is about helping your team members to grow and develop. Learning leadership skills is the work of a lifetime. You can never be done because there is always more to learn. There are always skills that you can work to improve.
What are some of the leadership skills that you would most like to improve? Where are your skills the strongest? Discuss them in the comments.
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