The Leadership Skills Of A Successful Leader
The call for a new brand of leaders have been heard for decades. Today’s leaders needs the leadership skills of a new era. Napoleon Hill started talking about it as early as 1937 in the famous book “Think and Grow Rich”, but it’s still as important today as was back in the 1930′s.
According to Napoleon Hill there are two forms of leadership. “Leadership by Consent” and “Leadership by Force”. Nopoleon shows the first for as the most effective and points to history for evidence. The significant downfall of dictators and kings shows that people will not follow the force of a leader indefinitly.
Napoleon Hill further talked about the importance of being an inteligent follower in order to develope into a leader. You need to be able to follow a leader efficiently in order to become an effective leader.
Seventy or so years ago, Napoleon Hill wrote down what he believed were the major attributes needed to be a successful leader. Although he used the male pronouns, Napoleon made it very clear in his book “Think and Grow Rich”, that he believes woman had just as much potential as men, which where extremly forward thinking for his time. I chose to quote his words “as is”:
1. UNWAVERING COURAGE based upon knowledge of self, and of one’s occupation. No follower wishes to be dominated by a leader who lacks self-confidence and courage. No intelligent follower will be dominated by such a leader very long.
2. SELF-CONTROL. The man who cannot control himself, can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one’s followers, which the more intelligent will emulate.
3. A KEEN SENSE OF JUSTICE. Without a sense of fairness and justice, no leader can command and retain the respect of his followers.
4. DEFINITENESS OF DECISION. The man who wavers in his decisions, shows that he is not sure of himself. He cannot lead others successfully.
5. DEFINITENESS OF PLANS. The successful leader must plan his work, and work his plan. A leader who moves by guesswork, without practical, definite plans, is comparable to a ship witho ut a rudder. Sooner or later he will land on the rocks.
6. THE HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR. One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness, upon the part of the leader, to do more than he requires of his followers.
7. A PLEASING PERSONALITY. No slovenly, careless person can become a successful leader. Leadership calls for respect. Followers will not respect a leader who does not grade high on all of the factors of a Pleasing Personality.
8. SYMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING. The successful leader must be in sympathy with his followers. Moreover, he must understand them and their problems.
9. MASTERY OF DETAIL. Successful leadership calls for mastery of details of the leader’s position.
10. WILLINGNESS TO ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY. The successful leader must be willing to assume responsibility for the mistakes and the shortcomings of his followers. If he tries to shift this responsibility, he will not remain the leader. If one of his followers makes a mistake, and shows himself incompetent, the leader must consider that it is he who failed.
11. COOPERATION. The successful leader must understand, and apply the principle of cooperative effort and be able to induce his followers to do the same. Leadership calls for POWER, and power calls for COOPERATION.
Napoleon Hill where one of the first to call out for the change in leadership, but many followed him.
In 1970 Robert Greenleaf puplished the essay “The Servant as Leader” which first introduced the term “servant leadersip”. This became the title of his most important work, puplished in 2002. He there introdused his “best test”. His “best test” for grading servant leadership, which he knew would be hard to grade, is stated:
Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?
Thinking rich and becoming rich will certainly put you in a position of leadership. I hope that some of Hill’s and Greenleaf’s suggestion will encourage you to decelope your own leadership skills and help change what seems to have become ordinary business in today’s leaders.
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Your right on Victor and everyone who wants to be successful should have this book and read it consistently. Look forward to more wise articles.
Thanks
Dianne
Victor, You hit that one straight on. This message is very timely and accurate. For Leadership success every Leader has to have the skills. It is time for leaders to emerge that have Leadership worthy character and skills.