Leadership Development Tools For Personal Growth

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What I hope to provide for you in this section of my website, are the nuances, personality traits that you (or others) should possess for effective leadership in your leadership development quest.

Historically, leadership development has focused on developing the leadership abilities and attitudes of individuals. People as you know, are not all born with the same potential to lead effictively anymore than people do not all have the same ability to play professional soccer like Beckam, or to sing like Luciano Pavarotti.

Different distinct personal characteristics can help or hinder a person's effective leadership are Servers first. Effective Leadership means putting your own wants and desires on hold at the expense and benefit of your team. Yes, leadership development implies leading, but effective leaders serve and lead by example first.

Everyone can develop their own individual leadership effectiveness and leadership styles. Achieving such leadership development takes focus, practice and persistence more akin to learning a musical instrument than reading a book.

Success of Leadership Development Efforts Has Been Linked To Three Variables:

Individual learner characteristics

Quality and nature of the leadership development program

Genuine support for behavioral change from the leader's supervisor.

Officer training academies such as the US Military Academy at West Point, and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, both go to greatest of lengths to only accept "potential" candidates who demonstrate the highest leadership management potential to lead well. Personal characteristics that are associated with successful leadership development include leader motivation to learn, a high achievement drive and personality traits such as openness to experience, an internal locus of control, and self-monitoring.

Just as no two people are the same with respect to leadership styles, there are varying leadership styles and leadership training and leadership coaching programs that may work well for one person-that is effective and yields the positive desired end result. However this same leadership training style or leadership coaching program may prove disingenuous to another individual.

Are You Leadership Material? How to Determine if You Have Effective Leadership Qualities...

1.Leaders are Willing to Serve not Serving to Lead:

From my personal experience as a Leader-working in various leadership positions both in the US and in India and Bangladesh involved in public health, I really believe the strongest and most important quality of a Leader is your willingness to serve others . A true leader is one who is willing to put the needs of the people he or she is entrusted to lead by serving them by example. This is an important quality on numerous levels.

How can the very people you are leading begin to have the trust and faith in you as a leader if they don’t see you walking in their shoes? An affective leader leads and serves by his or her example. Don’t ask from others to do what you wouldn’t do yourself. Too many leaders fail not because they don’t have the education or appropriate skill sets, but because they don’t lead first by serving.

Secondly, when the very people you are entrusted to lead see you leading by serving, your team will have won over your support, and are more inclined to listen and obey your directives and follow your example because they saw your leadership in action by serving others.

2. Possess Good Communication Skills

Communication is the key to be a great leader. The reason for this is simple: If you possesses the other nine leadership qualities but if you fail to communicate well, you will never be a great leader.

In other words, good communication skills, is the key for developing good business relationships. If you are unable to establish and build good business working relationships with your team and others, you are not going to be an effective leader-that team player.

All modern leaders must therefore be equipped with good communication skill and be able to use and implement new ways of technology in your business….(You Tube, Face book, Twitter, etc), as examples...

3. Honesty/Integrity

The most valuable asset of a leader is honesty. You must be honest with both your employees, management committee, and Board of Directors (if you have a board)/shareholders. You also must have integrity. Once you, as a leader compromise your integrity, all is lost. Integrity is perhaps regarded as the most admirable quality of leadership traits. As a leader, you must keep it "above all else."

4. Visionary outlook

You must always be thinking of ways for stabilizing the current business and always looking for future possibilities of expansion and growth…..Effective leadership reqires you to be able to look beyond where you are today, know where the business is going, and be able to use your inate vision to move your company forward in your strategic thinking/planning...being able to see the forest through the trees as a metaphor…

5. Judgment:

A good leader must possess tremendous

leadership management judgement. Effective leadership requires that you are able to select your “TEAM”, a TEAM that is efficient enough to back up any skills you may lack. Choosing the best people for such a team is a skill. But by working together you create an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect to get the job done. Do you know what the definition of TEAM is: Together Everyone Achieves More…….

6. Wisdom: As an effecive leader and as a manager-you must be able to put aside your concerns in order to listen to those around you... As a result, you must come to know what is going on, and know what is being said, between employees and management. Effective leadership requires the “gift” of appearing to know what people need even if those needs are not expressed directly.

However, knowing what is going on, and identifying the needs of those around you is not sufficient enough. Effective leadership requires you as manager-to act upon that knowledge, attempting to help fulfill the needs of employees, superiors, and management without compromising the goal and overall mission of your organization. Effective leadership requires you to be able to influence others in solving problems for those around you- often without ever having being asked to do so….

7. Ability to Motivate & Encourage Others:

Effective leadership requires you as manager to always be striving to keep motivating your team to do their very best. You must give first priority to safety of workers and see that they are not exploited by superiors.

8. Be Able To Lead by Your Example:

Leadership effectiveness is impossible without consistency-consistency from the smallest to the largest of details. Every leader has their own unique leadership styles amd approach (yours included)-that is unique to your individual leadership management qualities and style of governing.

Also, to be an effective leader you must be able to lead by example. Never…never ask your team to do something that you yourself would never do yourself. It’s hypocritical for one thing and sends a very different and negative message to your team and those around you…,this is key to your effectiveness as a leader. You must be able to make the tough decisions and demonstrate by your actions as an effective leader-that you are a team member…leading by your example.

"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men (and women) to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it......Theodore Roosevelt"

Which type of leader are you?......

Remember: ”The only Unfulfilled Goals in Your Life are the Ones you Never Attempt”

personal goal setting