Great Leadership Is About Being The Greatest Servant

You are a leader if you have followers. The difference between a leader and a manager is based on the reason people follow you. You are not a true leader if people follow you mainly because of your title or position. Managers get things done by telling people what to do and by giving orders. People follow good leaders because they want to not because they have to.

To Be A Leader You Must Influence Others

Selfless and charitable service is the best way to influence someone else. Honesty and integrity are two character traits that will increase your influence over others. You will have an almost impossible time gaining the loyalty of anyone if they think you will deceive them.

The author of the millionaire mind and millionaire next door reported that the millionaires he interviewed said honesty and integrity was central to business success. They said you can't be successful and don't deserve success if you are not honest.

Some Principles For Good Leadership

Be A Good Example

You must be a good example yourself first. You must be willing to do what you ask your people to do. Walk your talk. The greatest leader is also the greatest servant. A leader also needs to be passionate about something.

Create A Joint Vision

You give the vision birth and then let your team grow it. You must know your followers. The better you know your followers the more successful you will be as a leader. You need to know what drives them, what their dreams, hopes, aspirations, etc are.

Push Beyond Your Boundaries

If you are a leader you accept challenge. You break new ground. You are willing to take risks and fail, but you are smart about it. You need to know the strengths of your followers so you know how much risk they can handle. As a leader you know that obstacles will help you grow not hurt you. You learn from mistakes and successes and try to turn weaknesses into strengths.

You are not prideful because you will certainly fail if you are. A prideful leader is weak because he thinks he knows it all. You will never or rarely have breakthroughs if you think you know it all.

Enable And Build Other Leaders

One of the worst things you can do as a leader is to keep all the power to yourself. People want to feel they are making a difference in the organization and the world. You need to empower them by giving them responsibilities. You need to give your followers the tools to help them do the impossible.

Also don't let anarchy take over. You must have control; ideally you set up a system so your operation will go on without your constant direct involvement.

Inspire And Uplift

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