I am a recent JD/MBA graduate, and now practice law. Through all of my endeavors, I have learned the importance of leadership and how it plays a vital role in shaping the world in which we live. In this blog, I will share with you my thoughts on leadership and how it can affect you both professionally and personally.
GOOD LEADERS LEAD OTHERS
I believe that a leader is the person in a group who communicates a vision of a worthy goal and possesses the combination of personality, knowledge/experience/skill, and courage that makes others want to follow his or her direction. Furthermore, good leaders provide their followers with enough guidance and encouragement to help them succeed in achieving that worthy goal. Often times, people like to emulate good leaders because of their admirable qualities. So in essence, we look to good leaders to help guide us as to the type of person we want to become. And good leaders in turn enable others to follow.
GOOD LEADERS MAKE DECISIONS WITH COURAGE
But leadership is more than just being admirable and having other people follow you; it is also about making tough decisions and being accountable for those decisions. People typically have a difficult time making decisions because of lack of experience, knowledge, skill, and/or courage. Leaders are typically stronger in these areas, and people seek guidance from their leaders in order to help them make choices that are more likely to result in positive outcomes.
GOOD LEADERS WIELD POWER
To quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Leaders wield a lot of power, and thus they are also responsible for that power. So, good or bad, leaders will be both commended and/or reprimanded (hence accountable) for what is left in the wake of the path they create. If you are going to lead, lead well. Lead positively. Lead in the right direction.
GOOD LEADERS FOLLOW THEIR OWN LEAD
You never know which lives you may affect, because people are watching you all of the time: friends, family, teammates, colleagues, neighbors, strangers, the government, etc. Therefore, be the best version of you that you want to be and inspire others to do the same. Serve as a living example of success for whatever you value, and there will be people that will want to follow in your footsteps. Why? Because they identify with the admirable qualities that they themselves want to possess. Help them. Lead them.
LEAD YOUR OWN LIFE
It’s more of a grass roots approach to leadership, but it is leadership at its core: creating a sense of purpose and demonstrating the combination of personality, knowledge/experience/skill, and courage that makes others want to follow you to realize a worthy goal. So it’s up to you as to what type of leader you want to be. At the very least, lead your own life. Be the example that others admire. If you value hard work and wish others would work the way you do, work hard, do good work, and work well with others. Your results will speak for themselves. Eventually, your managers, coworkers, and customers/clients will begin to recognize the value of what you do and reward with you promotions, raises, trust, confidence, repeat business, and/or referrals. You have to start somewhere, and for those of us who are young and just starting out, that usually means you’re starting from the bottom. But don’t wait for big things to happen. Don’t wait till you eventually have authority or the ability to lead a large group of people junior to you. Start leading your own life now. It’s the best way to get to where you want to go.
In closing, remember the butterfly effect – small differences in the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long-term behavior of the system. In other words, together, small ripples can create big waves.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment