By guest blogger Mary Brians [See Biography]
Leadership is a trait that can be taught and improved. Somebody comes to being the idol for millions by occasion, while others deliberately fulfill their life mission and realize the need to organize people around them to achieve this mission.
Every person who wishes to influence change and be a turning point in his or her community can become better at leading others mastering these five aspects.
Emotions can be a great source of wisdom and motivation provided that you know how to use them right. However, if you easily give in into rage, give up whenever you feel unappreciated or work at your best only when under desire for appraisal – such patters can’t lay a sustainable foundation for your personal development and leadership.
Learn to work with your emotions: tame your inner flames, analyze what you feel, know how to distinguish your real inner feelings from those imposed by third-party influencers.
- Learn psychology
Nothing can beat the experience of being around thousands and thousands of different people, but knowing the subconscious mechanisms and roadmaps of human brain will provide you with better understanding of how and why people react the way they do. This is what psychology and all its contemporary divisions (neuroscience, behavioral studies and others) can teach you.
It’s no need to go back to school and get a second Masters degree, but make reading psychological materials your hobby. Scientific American, Psychology Today and Harvard Business Review are a great source of soft knowledge every executive should know.
- Practice kindness
Being kind is a sign of a very strong personality and people around will always be drawn to genuine inner love towards outer world. Here we are talking not about random acts of kindness when the opportunity arrives. What we suggest is creating opportunity to be kind to others and doing it regularly.
It takes courage and immense self-control to be kind to somebody who is by all means rude to you – but only when you truly believe in the power of love, like Gandhi did, will you gain more strength from committing 100% of yourself into every relationship and every situation, without blaming the others.
- Read Great Leader’s biographies
Learning from mistakes and winnings of others is the best and cheapest way to gain practical leadership knowledge. Every leader is naturally drawn to history and every smart leader chooses carefully the books and articles that tell more about lives and views of the Great Leaders in this world, such as Henry Ford, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela and others.
Make a point of discovering new interesting personalities each month and make sure to choose some of those who will be your examples.
Realizing that nothing in you or around you is stable and your intelligence, emotions, potential and etc. can be influenced by deliberate actions is one of the most important mindsets you need in order to succeed in this life.
Believing in yourself and seeing yourself as a project in action will shape your life and help you achieve your life mission. Good luck in your endeavors!
[Don’t forget to “Like” the Leader Maker at our Facebook Page.]
————————–
Biography: Mary Brians is a writer at EssaySamurai. Behavioral psychology is both her MA specialization and hobby.
Great article. Let’s not allow those who follow us to overlook its importance to be a better leader.