One Quality Every Effective Leader Must Have
One essential ingredient for leadership can be so natural or so elusive. It is achievable by any of us, I believe, and education can help or hinder.
It is also something that we see among leaders in communities everywhere: school principal, organizer of a volunteer effort, small town mayor, owner of a local construction company or any successful entrepreneur. Indeed, I could argue that the greatest leaders of all may be mothers!
Not that everyone in these roles has this one essential ingredient, but then not everyone is great at what they do and the great ones have it.
Finding the Common Thread
This common thread that ties together all of these people and roles relates to purpose. It relates to vision. However, it is much more. It includes commitment at the very highest level. It relates to selflessness, serving and taking on something bigger than themselves.
That one essential ingredient is that the leader becomes that for which he or she stands for. The leader and those whom they are leading at once become almost indistinguishable, such that you could say, at least at one point in time, that Mahatma Gandhi is India, Jeff Bezos is Amazon, Al Capone is the Chicago Mafia, or that small town mayor is that small town.
But how does it get that way? The leader believes in the possibility of a better place, a better condition and a better way. That belief is so deep founded, that there is a commitment to action, to enlisting support and to standing steadfast in the face of obstacles.
What are your deepest beliefs? What possibilities are you going after? How do they align with what you are doing and your ability to lead?
This post is part of the series: Countdown to Leadership
This is a series covers four unique styles that effective leaders employ, three essentials that you must absolutely have and do to be effective as a leader, two simple things that you can do to put yourself into a position of leadership and one thing that all of the best leaders have in common.
