Everybody knows that great leaders are made, not born. That statement sure sounds good but is it possible to be “made” into a leader? I don’t know how you see it, but I certainly have a few other questions that need to be answered.
So how DO you boost your leadership skills? If you want to improve your ability to lead, where should you focus your attention? Why are certain leadership talents more important than others?
To Boost or not to – that’s a good question
Would I want to be a leader with more skills? Yes, especially when you look at the word “more”. You would want to be able to plan a strategy or agenda to meet large numbers of challenging situations.
You might need a lot of different skills to handle the diverse causes of low morale in your followers. With more skills, you should be better prepared to take action with greater confidence, and you would act more decisively.
More skills mean you have more options to choose from, more approaches to solving the “problem”, and more opportunities to innovate. In the world of leaders, I would say that “more is definitely better!”
Quo Vadis? Whither doth thou goest? Where should you focus your attention?
Taking a journey involves having a purpose and an end location in your mind. Your leadership training, development and education demand the same kind of purposeful mind-set. The reasons for improving your leadership abilities will vary with your circumstances.
For instance, what situations are you facing, how will your leadership skills be applied?
- Will you lead a special or critical one-time project?
- Will you lead others who directly report to you or are under your direct influence?
- Will you lead people who are outside your sphere of control [such as, your clients, partners from other companies, or members of your community]?
You must focus your attention on providing service through your leadership. To look at leadership in this light, you will need to know what types of leadership service are required:
- Should your style be dictating or nurturing;
- Should more of your time be spent listening or observing;
- Should your behavior be motivating or modeling;
- Should your role be instructing or supervising and so on.
Leadership is not a wandering-around activity – when a leader is aimless. their followers are clueless, and everyone’s efforts are worthless.
Show and Tell or tell and show – it depends on your talents
Because you do have strengths and weaknesses, you owe it to yourself to investigate your talents honestly and deeply. Are you a strong communicator, do you usually think about or see things in a positive light, can you easily adapt yourself to deal with changes, are you flexible?
Your strengths will empower your effectiveness and your weaknesses will betray you and disgust, disappoint or discourage others.The trick you need to turn is found in using your strengths to condemn and promote your weaknesses.
Let me explain myself – I have a fairly strong ability to react to and perceive the subtleties of my surroundings – but there are times when I realize that my understanding of someone else’ s meaning is wrong. At that time, I might say something like, “I’m so smart that sometimes I can be prefectly stupid!”
Another way to overcome your weakness is to delegate your authority to and share your power with someone who has a greater strength, more time or stronger connection than your do. But you should always assess your skills, knowledge and relationships – in other words, you want to keep a continual inventory of your attributes and shortfalls.
Your portfolio of strengths affects your ability to decide on a prudent course of action, with knowledge of your weaknesses you can defend the threat to your mission by dveloping alternative plans or assign tasks to other resources.
Once you have determined the state of your strengths, you can use that skills-inventory to be more creative in establishing appropriate patterns, structures and solutions to help support your leadership purpose.
Will you step-up to the challenge, are you willing to awaken the great leader inside you, if so, you can be “made” into a leader of great promise. You were born to bless the world with your God-given greatness, please don’t deny us your unique contributions.
Copyright 2003, Mustard Seed Investments, Inc., All rights reserved.
Bill Thomas teaches leadership techniques using strategic,
innovative, evolutionary-focused concepts – his 2-Volume,
how-to Manual, “Strategic Organizational Leadership: Create
& Deliver Fail-Proof, Breakthrough Plans”, uses an
energizing process of group development to produce value
empowered results! “See it, Plan it, Lead it, Improve it!”
http://www.leadership-toolkit.com/planning.html
