Developing Leadership Within You

The Essence of Leadership is Character.

As we know some people have the "born leaders" talent. So they do not need to work hard to lead, but a little work still need to be done to reach to the top. Because if she doesn't learn the skills, well that would be such a waste of talent.

But to those who doesn't have it, no need to worry.
The skills can be learned and practiced.

Let's start!

Before one try to lead a group of people, she should lead herself.
Being the leader of oneself is not an easy task as you might think.
Being discipline is also a task of leading oneself.

Vince Lombardi

Leaders aren't born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.

You can start with organizing yourself everyday.
Make an arrangement or what you must do everyday.

Graeme Edwards

It's not the plan that is important, it's the planning

And follow that for a whole three months.
Give littke rewards when you succeed doing it for one day or one week.
And give your self a big reward for finishing the 3 months program :)

But wait, it's not finished.... yet
Once you had tap in to the habit, you will grow your own self confidence.
If you can do this, you can do almost everything in your life.
Including leading other people..... (that's the goal, isn't it?)

Now, it's time to analyze what you have done for the past 3 months.
What will happen in the first day?
You will feel awkward at first, and try to find excuses not to do things that you have previously arranged. There will be excuses like, "I can do that tomorrow, it's not that important to do it now". Then you will postpone it to tomorrow and then to the day after tomorrow....

Sounds familiar?
That is what we call failing to lead oneself, no discipline.

Clint Eastwood

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives.

And then at the very end you will feel guilty for not doing very well.
But please, this is a process that anyone has to go through.
Enjoy the process and learn from it.

Gene Mauch

You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself.

John C. Maxwell

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way

What will you learn from the experiment?
First, the planning has to be good, because you are the one who knows all about yourself, your jobs, your situation. In other words, you take control of your own life. You know what is important and what is not, what is urgent and what is not, everything. Take responsibility of your life.

Second, you have gone through the process, so you will know when to change the plan and when the plan is not changeable, but don't forget to be flexible in everything you do.

Third, acknowledge the problems you had in the process because it's likely to happen again when you try to lead people. Like the one when you try to postpone something, review why? is it not important enough to be done? Or doing it make you somehow feel....? that you have to postpone it again and again, or you are just being lazy..
Hehehe... there's no cure for that.

Last but not least, keep learning and keep the habit also. You can make the habit of checking this blog every week so that you can learn more stuff about leadership.

P.S : Please feel free to post comment especially if you had more things to learn from the experiment and want to share it with the others.



by Jenny

Posted in: essential leadership