Leadership is a broad field of study and has a huge impact on an individual’s life and in a business environment. Being a great leader requires genuine willingness and a true commitment to lead others to achieve a common vision and goals through positive influence. “Everything rises and falls on leadership,” ~Dr. John Maxwell. It should be well appreciated that leadership starts and ends with you and therefore one needs to take personal initiative in order to harness the fruits of good leadership. The ability to understand and apply good leadership traits is therefore vital for a successful and thriving organization.
What needs to be done in your journey to becoming a good leader?
Self-essence: To become a good leader, one needs to perform self-reflection and introspection that will ultimately enable the assessment of one’s strengths and weaknesses. Your strengths make you unique and different. Your strength as an individual can be your charisma, courage, and character, being a problem solver, fast learner, and having a vision.
Your strength as a business could be expertise, a superior product, or brand name, these should be enhanced. It is important to assess your weaknesses and ultimately turn them into your strength. All these should be done bearing in mind that when performing introspective reflection, there is a matrix and effort must be made to understand it. This piece of information can be obtained from feedback.
It is therefore important to obtain feedback from your immediate surrounding which includes your colleagues, friends, family, clients, and not forgetting your competitors (as a business) to gain an in-depth understanding of your strength and weaknesses.
What do businesses need to do?
Employees are essential capital to a business entity and therefore businesses should give equal opportunities to all their staff and appreciate their opinion. This will in turn make them take full responsibility and accountability for their work which will result in enhanced productivity and overall success of the business.
Positive critics instead of criticism should be appreciated because every opinion matters and it can always be modified to fit the needs.
If you can become the leader you ought to be on the inside, you will be able to become the leader that you want to be on the outside. “If you are able to do that, you will find there is nothing in this world you cannot do.” ~ Dr. John Maxwell.
By: Caesar Ongom
