2 Essentials of Leadership
by Arthur Cooper
Published on this site: February 10th, 2006 - See
more articles from this month
There are many human qualities that make a leader. Leadership
is an amalgam of skills and attributes of all sorts, some
more tangible than others.
There are, however, two essentials that every leader must
possess, without exception. These are Vision and Communication
Skills.
All leaders must have a vision of what they want to achieve
and what they want to do. No one can hope to lead others if
they don't themselves know what they are going. It is the
essential first element. It is what sets the tone. It is what
fires up the necessary drive and desire. The vision of the
end result is what keeps the leader driving on towards his
goal throughout difficulties and setbacks. A leader, then, must be a visionary.
But to be a visionary is not enough. A visionary can see
the future as it could be. He can see the result vividly in
his mind's eye. He can point the way to others. He can even
set off on his own to go there himself. But none of that makes
him a leader. A leader takes others with him.
The have been plenty of visionaries in history who have predicted
and foreseen advances to science and technology. There have
been visionaries who have imagined better societies. In business
there have been visionaries in the form of inventors of new and better ways of doing or making
things. Many of these had wonderful visions of what could
be achieved. They were brilliant people, but were they leaders?
Did they persuade others to follow in their dreams? Did they
have the power to communicate their vision to others?
Some certainly did and were the leaders of their time. Others
did not. Their vision was never achieved in their lifetime,
or indeed ever, despite the fact that the vision was sound and the goal achievable. They failed because they
failed to convince others of the rightness of their cause.
They failed to turn their vision into reality because they
could not convince others to share it. They lacked the communication
skills to convince others.
In business this is seen as the man or woman with a host
of ideas of how to do things better, or cheaper, or with a
vision of where the company should be going, but to whom no
one listens. His ideas may be brilliant and his vision may
be wonderful, but he cannot convince others that he is right.
To be a leader you must persuade with argument and logic,
certainly, but you must do more if you want to bring you ideas
to fruition. You must fire people up. You must enthuse them
and excite them if you want to lead them forwards.
Leadership is about communicating your vision to others to
the point where they too want to see it fulfilled. They too
want to go where you want to go. They see you as a visionary
and want to follow you as their leader. You lead and they
follow, but they have already been convinced and won over
to your cause. They too share the enthusiasm to overcome obstacles
and difficulties. They too have the will to keep on when times
get hard. They keep pressing on because they want to and not
just because you tell them to.
If you can use you communication skills to transmit your
vision, then you job as leader becomes infinitely easier.
You no longer have to drag people along with you. You just
have to point the way.
Arthur Cooper is a writer and publisher. For his mini-course
'Better Management' go to:
http://www.barrel-publishing.com/better_management.shtml
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