What it Takes to Lead

While leadership styles may vary by industries, the principles are the same. And to be a great leader — one that stands out from the crowd — you must work hard to continually improve your leadership skills. Not only for you, but for your company’s sake. As Indra Nooyi, former PepsiCo. CEO, says “If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself so the organization gets pulled up with you.” 

So, if leadership is the key to pulling up your company, then it would seem like business owners would want to hone their leadership skills for the sake of their businesses. 

But, what does it take to be an amazing leader? What does great leadership look like?  How do you hone your leadership skills? 

According to the late NFL coaching legend 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." 

In other words, leaders don’t become leaders overnight. They work up to it. So, while some may have an internal calling to lead, everyone has leadership qualities within them if they dig down deep enough and are willing to study how to be an effective leader.  It’s a metamorphous of sorts that oftentimes sees a person bloom into a leadership role vie necessity. 

Dee Hock, former CEO of the Visa credit card association, went more into detail about how you leaders come about and what aspiring leaders can do to hone their leadership skills. 

He once said, "Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time in leading yourself--your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20 percent leading those with authority over you and 15 percent leading your peers." 

Again, it takes hard work and a commitment to evolve into a leader. 

This includes learning from mentors and people in leadership positions. Sometimes important lessons learned come from watching others make mistakes, other times from their excellent examples.  Their examples, good and bad, will help to optimize your leadership style, if you are paying attention. However, once you gain that leadership experience from mentors, a true leader transitions from student to mentor.  Former General Electric (GE) CEO Jack Welch wrote about this in his book Winning.

He wrote, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”  

He wasn’t the only leader to have imparted that advice as Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, made a similar statement on the importance of mentoring.  According to Sandberg, “leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”  

The aforementioned influential and successful leaders learned about leadership over the course of decades as leaders in their fields. They  know what they are talking about. Take their advice. Their wisdom will only help to improve your leadership style, which will in turn improve the success of your businesses and your employees quality of work life.  


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