05 Mar When No One is Looking Take the Lead Essay #1
Are You Ready?
Leadership: the ability to influence, direct and enable others to combine their efforts to achieve.
Leader: the person who acts with understanding of this definition.
Think about light. To see it is to know exactly what it is. But look at it through a prism and multicolored bands appear, revealing a spectrum of energy that makes light, “light”.
We are all born with qualities, traits and characteristics that form the spectrum of what it means to be a human. Other attributes of self are taught, learned and acquired. Like the bands of color that make light what it is, these attributes, those intrinsic and attained, make each of us who we are. They are what create your individuality, the essential you that is “YOU”.
Each attribute gives you potential. Not all attributes are present in everyone, and to the degree that they are present in any combination varies as greatly as the physical differences that distinguish one person from another.
This is also true for what it means to be a leader. There are specific attributes essential to leadership, core components of character indispensable to what it takes to command, guide and influence. These attributes are not present in everyone, and not all leadership attributes are inherent. Some can be acquired through training and experience. That said, those attributes most vital to leadership are endowed more than they are engineered.
Am I saying leaders are exclusively born to be who they are? Yes and no. Like extraordinary musicians, transcendent athletes and remarkable mathematicians leaders possess innate qualities, traits, talents and intellects that incline them for a certain prowess. But they are made by the moment. In other words, attributes make leadership possible. Situations make leadership actual.
How you respond in any situation reveals what character attributes you have, and how they will be expressed. Not everyone is capable of responding the same way. Though many people face situations to become leaders, few actually do. Possessing leadership attributes, whether innate or acquired, means nothing if they are never evidenced by what you say and do. You must be challenged and tested by circumstance to determine if they are within you. The issue then becomes one of self-enforcement — — the effort applied by personal direction to strive and succeed. In other words:
What are you willing to do, to become who you want to be?
Just as you can perform exercises for better physical fitness, you can perform exercises for better leadership fitness. And just as physical exercises will bring you to the discomfort of exertion, so too will leadership exercises.
Discomfort is precisely what you are seeking.
It defines your current level of development, which is graded by your comfort during performance.
Even if the capacity for leadership is not evidenced by your potential, know that EVERYONE can benefit from leadership training. Why?
- Personal development, especially the type that challenges and stimulates you beyond your current mode of thought and behavior, will advance you towards becoming your best YOU.
- Each attribute spawns and supports different talents, what I also refer to as “competencies”. If you can determine what attributes you have, develop them and their related talents, you can enhance your value as a vital member of a team.
- Knowing what it takes to be a leader will enable you to recognize competent leadership in others. You’ll become better at knowing who to follow and ally yourself with for greater achievement, success and fulfillment.