Leadership Characteristics- What are they for you?

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader”. – John Quincy Adams (6^th US President and son of 2^nd US President)

“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximises the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.” -Kevin Kruse. 

“Good leaders push their people forward with excitement, inspiration, trust, and vision.” – unknown

“With the rise of the knowledge worker, “one does not ‘manage’ people,” “The task is to lead people. And the goal is to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of every individual.” -Peter Drucker

Managers manage things. Leaders lead people.

To improve our leadership ability I believe we need to have the right attitude which demands control of three basic elements DESIRE-  BELIEF – EXPECTATION

DESIRE – when you can build a strong desire in you and your team you generate a strong emotive force to take action. Do this by identifying the benefits that will come as a result of having achieved an outcome. Desire is the passion to get going and continue when many would give up.

BELIEF– the energy that keeps you moving towards your goal. Learn how to Delete Negative programs and learn the secret of walking your talk by pretending you have already achieved your goal.

Let me share two short stories about Belief:

Remember Star War’s – The Empire Strikes Back, the scene when Luke Skywalker attempts to get his X Plane out of the swamp he crashed into but fails. Yoda then steps up, closes his eyes, and with outstretched arms, pulls the plane from the swamp onto dryland. Luke stares in wonder. “I don’t believe it!” he says. Yoda looks at him pauses, sighs and then replies, “That is why you fail.”

It’s a reminder that success requires self- belief and a leader must infuse this belief within their team.

Another story about belief is the 4 minute mile, Roger Bannister back in 1954, up till then no one believed it could be done, after placing 4^th in 1952 Olympics he set a new goal, and publicly announced the 4 min mile as his goal. So his desire to succeed was high. In the May of 1953 he ran 4:03:06 so close that he realised it was within his reach, 1 year later, a whole 365 days to shave 4 sec’s, he ran 3:59:4 Goal Achieved!

EXPECTATION: Attracts you towards your Future History (FH) like a magnet. Learn how to expect success, to expect the goal to be achieved live act as if its already achieved.

Build expectation by reading other leaders success stories and by seeing your success FH regularly.

On the 4 min mile story ,More interestingly after Roger just 6 weeks later another runner did a sub 4m and in following years countless runners did it, even some high school kids! SO what happened?

What changed? BELIEF and EXPECTATION.

Other runners broke it because it was now easier to believe! They knew it could be done, the goal had become more achievable to them.