Here are some real examples that help you understand it better....
Leadership skills are born and are made!
Let us look at the leadership skills in more details. Most of us wanted to be leaders at some point in our lives. We all dream about it and we strive to have it as we went along in life. I dream of being the captain of our local soccer team or the leader at the students union during the university period. Some of us succeed; others wonder what leadership skills they are missing in order to become a leader in their filed. Unless you wanted to be the leader of the world, defining your desired field of leadership helps you achieve what you dream of when you were young.
Interestingly enough, you will discover that leadership is more about your behavior and born-characteristics first and your leadership skills second!
To help you understand this point better, think of the world known leader: Nelson Mandela for example. The people of South Africa followed Mr. Mandela because they trusted and respected his leadership skills. Mr. Mandela did not have his leadership skills sharpened at Harvard University. He was a born leader who cared for his own people’s freedom.
Mr. Mandela, as a leader showed great leadership skills in terms of sensitivity to his followers. He exhibited compassion, honesty, determination, courage, commitment, integrity passion, confidence, and wisdom. The leaders' wisdom is expressed in the leadership quotes. We can say that he had the Charisma to be a leader or was born to be a leader. Most leaders similar to Mr. Mandela didn’t seek a career in leadership. They just became one because their behaviors are the ones of a born leader.
If you were not born to be a leader, you still can be one at your field of expertise. Personality development and understanding is key to understand how to develop your leadership skill. All you need is to have your leadership skills developed to be able lead. If you cannot build your leadership skills, then simply don’t lead, just follow.
Leaders’ main task in life is to achieve a goal that they very much believe in. This could be part of their ideology that they were raised memorizing or inspired them during their livelihood.
To this effect, you as a leader need to know what is the goal of your mission and plan to achieve it accordingly. You will need someone to help you out. You need to build a committed team who believes in these same goals. Leadership is all about leading a group of people: Team work.
You, as a leader, need to lead your people or team by showing your leadership skills compassion, integrity, honesty, humility, determination, courage, passion, confidence, commitment, wisdom and expertise. Becoming a leader entials more than skills. To be able to lead a team, you have to be very honest with yourself. What I mean by this is that you have to know your strengths and weaknesses, your threshold to manage people, your ability to be compassionate. Learn from your own team. They will teach you more about yourself than anyone else.
Leadership has many styles. They say being a leader means staying lonely. This could be right is certain situations. I’ve seen this vividly in politics and in some corporate offices. Being a leader sometimes requires that your plan alone and execute though your team. Assessing your situation’s requirements would formulate your leadership style in general. Watch Leadership training skills and styles while watching the Apollo 13 movie!
Leadership comes in different colors and styles. The leadership styles depends on the leadership tasks.
It's hard to think of a leader that commands as much respect as Jack Welch of General Electric. He reinvented GE several times over by integrating new and innovative practices into its many lines of business.
Here are some of the leadership skills which Jack outlined in his book 'Jack: Straight From The Gut':
About the Leadership skills in the corporate:
• There is only one way: the straight way.
• Transfer learning across your organization.
• An informal atmosphere is a competitive advantage.
• Business has to be fun: celebrations energize and organization.
Characteristics of a leader:
• Be open to the best of what everyone, everywhere, has to offer.
• Get the right people in the right jobs
• Understand where real value is added and put your best people there.
• Everybody counts and everybody should know that they count.
• Legitimate self confidence is a winner
• The true test of self confidence is the courage to be open.
• Never underestimate the other colleague.
• Know when to meddle and when to let go. Use your pure instinct.