Many aspiring new business men and women get promoted, or diligently earn new and higher roles and positions,…only to get cast into a leadership position for which they are totally unprepared. The result?…such folks as these fall flat on their faces in total failure. All too often these type people simply cannot understand or figure out why they failed. Their first response to their own dilemma is to find fault with other people or place blame where it does not belong. Please keep in mind that you, and you alone, are responsible for your own thoughts, words, and actions (or inaction).
No other outside person can or will lead for you. You are the one who is charged with leading. First leading yourself, and secondly leading others. One truth of life is certain: If you cannot adequately lead yourself,…you will never be able to effectively lead other people. Permit me to remind you that the true Secret of all Success lies in the second letter of the word!
In order for any particular person to be able to lead well, they will have to master a whole host of personal skills. Such people skills include articulating ideas be they good or bad, recognizing real talent (or lack thereof), managing serious crisis, staying calm in the midst of a storm (crisis), being willing to be the correct example for the sub-leaders to observe, etc.–but that is not all. Leadership for the most part is a developed skill set. While it is indeed a very rare occurrence, there are some (very few) individuals who are actually born leaders of other people. The remainder of all the leaders are developed over a relatively long period of time and all with lots of stubbed toes, scraped and scabbed knees, and some broken noses. Evaluated Experience is the greatest teacher. The most important of the needed additional skills required of a leader is attitude. A person’s basic mental attitudes will always determine how well he or she can develop and apply those necessary skills required to lead other people.
From my nearly four decades of leading other people inside and outside of business operations, I have come to realize that there are six “absolute attributes” required and performed by all truly successful leaders of people. Those who attempt to lead other people and use less than these six “absolutes” will expend lots of time and resources, will work very hard and long hours, will invest their resources trying to lead other people, will continuously try to equip other folks to become leaders,…but will, in the end, lose all that they have worked for and tried to establish. They will eventual self destruct. Why?…mostly because they did not possess and further develop a much better positive mental attitude about what they were attempting to achieve. Other people will always disappoint you. Many will let you down. Many leaders-in-training will simply never develop into what they could have become because they lack one or more of these six absolutes.