“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams (America’s 6th president; 1825 – 1829)
How many of us are student leaders? Be it in your class, co-curricular activities (CCA), or even in external commitments such as perhaps, church groups. Most of us would have come across great leaders in the textbooks that we have read, the stories that our parents and teachers told us and also through videos shared on social media platforms. Based on all the stories that we have heard, it is evident that the person at the top usually makes the difference between success and failure. A good leader makes average people into exceptional performers.
Have you ever considered what it takes to become a great leader? Well then, you need to possess some exceptional leadership attributes about which we are going to walk you through in this blog.
Be decisive
“Decision-making” is a key trait for any leader. If you want to be a successful leader, you need to have the ability to weigh several options and then make the final call. But, does decision-making just involve the leader alone?
You would have seen your seniors actively organizing school events. Have you paid close attention to the manner in which they organize the committee meetings and take collective decisions? This is how an ideal leader works. He gets data from his team, summarises it into useful information and then makes the final call which turns out as a win-win situation to all the parties involved.
Inspire others
Have you heard of the quote – “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” What this means is that when the situation becomes difficult, the strong people will work harder to overcome the challenges.
Leaders are always inspirational. It is the manner in which they handle complex and tough situations that make them stand out from the rest. In fact, it is this quality that inspires many people to break the shackles and achieve big.
Be empathetic
It is important that we try to place ourselves in the shoes of another person during a difficult negotiation or conversation. Leadership is all about people management and communication. Only when you are able to see things just as the other person does, you will be able to come up with a solution that satisfies both the parties involved
Embrace Change
“Learn to unlearn”
Learning is not just confined to acquiring knowledge about new things. It also involves the process of unlearning things that you have learned before, provided it is good for you and the people you are surrounded with.
If you want to become a successful leader, be it in a small school group or a multi-national company, you need to be ready to change your ideas and decisions when things aren’t working out well. This is possible only when you “learn to unlearn”.
Keep learning
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other”. – John F Kennedy.
It is important that you stay updated in your concerned domain. It is even more important that you read about subjects outside of your day-to-day experience as it helps spawn creativity and new ideas which are very important to leadership.
Be authentic
There are instances where some leaders develop an artificial public persona. They try to copy other leaders who have inspired them. But what they forget in the course of doing so is that they lose their originality.
All of us – aspiring leaders – should understand that developing competence can be learned from other inspirational leaders. But, character is the factor that is unique from person to person, and at the end of the day, it is “character” that contributes to the authenticity of a leader. Always remember that you should never waste time trying to be someone that you are not as it is the perfect recipe for failure.
There is a major misconception that leadership is all about control. People think that if they control their followers or subordinates, they will be able to extract their maximum potential. But is that really true?
The ‘control and command’ kind of leadership does not create a positive working environment. So, what happens when people are asked to work in a forced environment? Their creativity gets suppressed and they won’t be able to perform to their fullest potential.
So, what exactly is good leadership?
Good leadership is all about taking care of people, providing them space to be themselves and making them feel better.
As Singapore becomes increasingly developed, people are going to gain expertise in their preferred domain. So, with most people having strong knowledge in each and every field, who is going to become the”leader” of these talents? It is “character” that turns out to be the differentiator in this scenario. It is the perfect combination of character and competence that is going to help a leader make sound decisions and become a classic example for his/her team and followers.
Following the Lunar Calendar, the main characteristics associated with a good rat are – diligence, sociable and the ability to quickly react to situations with good intuition and foresight. On a serious note, these are qualities that an ideal leader should possess too. Hopefully, this “Year of the Rat” helps us acquire these key attributes, strengthen our character and guide us in making the right decisions.
Exam Smart Tips
Exam Smart Tip #1 – How to Encourage Our Kids to Speak Better?
Exam Smart Tip #2 – How to avoid carelessness?
Exam Smart Tip #3 – Establishing Routines!
Exam Smart Tip #4 – Let’s Read Carefully!
Exam Smart Tip #5 – Beating the Exam Fever!
Exam Smart Tip #6 – How to Eat Right for the Exams?
Exam Smart Tip #7 – How to Avoid a Meltdown?
Exam Smart Tip #8 – Taking Stress out of Tests
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