If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people,
the key is to become a person of quality yourself.
Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts,
skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a
manager, as a parent. What's important in leadership is
refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on
themselves until they become effective. Here are some
specifics:
Learn to be strong but not impolite. It is an extra step
you must take to become a powerful, capable leader
with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness
for strength. It's not even a good substitute.
Next, learn to be kind but not weak. We must not
mistake weakness for kindness. Kindness isn't weak.
Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind
enough to tell someone the truth. We must be kind
enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough
to tell it like it is and not deal
in delusion.
Next, learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness
to win the day. To build your influence, you've got
to walk in front of your group. You've got to be willing
to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover
the first sign of trouble. Like the farmer, if you want
any rewards at harvest time, you have got to be bold
and face the weeds and the rain and the bugs straight
on. You've got to seize the moment.
Here's the next step. You've got to learn to be humble
but not timid. You can't get to the high life by being
timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. But
humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease. It's an affliction.
It can be cured, but it is a problem.
Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe.
A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul
and spirit. An understanding that there is something
unique about the human drama versus the rest of life.
Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the
stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars.
Here's a good tip: Learn to be proud but not arrogant.
It takes pride to build your ambitions. It take pride in
your community. It takes pride in a cause, in accomplishment.
But the key to becoming a good leader is to
be proud without being arrogant.
Do you know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance
from ignorance. It's intolerable. If someone is smart and
arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant
and arrogant, that's just too much to take.
The next step is learning to develop humor without
folly. In leadership, we learn that it's okay to be witty
but not silly; fun but not foolish.
Next, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the
agony of delusion. Just accept life as it is. Life is unique.
The whole drama of life is unique. It's fascinating.
Life is unique. Leadership is unique. The skills that
work well for one leader may not work at all for another.
However, the fundamental skills of leadership can
be adopted to work well for just about everyone: at
work, in the community, and at home.
Source: Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn
Learn more about Jim Rohn and his audio programs.