Are You a True Leader?

"Leader" is a fundamental figure for leading a team, but he is also a role for which not everyone is suited. It is not just about telling someone what to do, but it is about leading a group towards a common goal, properly harnessing each member's skills and efforts without trying to manage or manipulate them.

Unlike the manager, who focuses primarily on supervising results, the leader has the task of focusing on people: through the right corporate leadership strategy, he must find ways to motivate his group and to ensure that each member gives the maximum to achieve success.

How do we know if we are good leaders? Are we confident that we lead our team and not just direct it?

Here then are what we believe are the fundamental characteristics that anyone (manager, manager, project leader) wants to be a good leader.

To define himself as such, the LEADER must:

1. Be inspired and have a clear vision of how to realize your idea, proposing and promoting the activities of the team.

The leader must be able to inspire and motivate his team, sharing with it a desire, a dream, a vision. It must therefore create a collaborative spirit, in the name of which each is ready to help the other, in the common interest of pursuing the common goal. A spirit that must be cultivated day after day and that must constantly feed the motivation of the members.

Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. - John Maxwell

Those who want to be leaders but do not say things. Good leaders explain them. Even better leaders prove them. Great leaders inspire them.

It must also be available to convey knowledge and values. In the eyes of the team, he must become the one who knows how to act as a model to be admired, imitated, followed. After all, the leader is the one who has followers… what leader would he be without?

Be careful though !! Let's not forget a very important factor: ok to aggregate the team's energies around the common goal, but, at the same time, it is imperative to ensure that there is also a personal growth of every single member of the team!

Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another. - John Maxwell

2. Knowing how to set definitive goals and commit to achieving them

The organizational capacity is a very important quality. It requires clarity of ideas and practical sense in assigning tasks, in maintaining the expected execution times, in planning operations. Only with detailed planning can the leader be followed by his team and complete each step to achieve the goal.

3. Live and act with integrity

He has to be sincere, practicing values ​​directly with actions. By consolidating his credibility and personality, it will also strengthen his level of influence accordingly.

4. Keep a positive attitude.

It means not being knocked down by no or defeats, but rather considering them as obligatory steps, from which to take inspiration to improve.

Leaders don’t complain about what’s not working. Leaders celebrate what is working and work to amplify it. - Simon Sinek

5. Possess excellent communication skills

Knowing how to communicate with others in a clear and sincere way but also knowing how to listen to what others, consciously or unconsciously, communicate to us.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. - Stephen Covey

6. Having self-awareness, being willing to admit one's mistakes and weaknesses and learn from them

A strong leader must know how to communicate his weaknesses to his team so that together we can identify a person who excels in that particular task or activity.

Selecting the right person for the right job is the largest part of coaching. - Phil Crosby

7. Continue to educate and improve yourself.

The best leaders never stop learning. - Donalt T. Phillips

8. Responsibility

A good leader must be aware of the importance of things and people and have determination, perseverance, and seriousness in pursuing a project.

It means being there always, especially when there is a need (not when you are free). It means dealing with the integration of the various members of the team, with the resolution of disputes without choosing which side to be on, but making the two parties dialogue. It also means being aware of the needs and requirements of other human beings and knowing how to integrate them with your own to balance the group. It means knowing how to recognize and take on one's mistakes in a personal capacity, avoiding looking for a "scapegoat" outside oneself.

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. - Jim Rohn

9. Be charismatic and empathetic but have character and trust in yourself and your ideas

You need to be able to firmly affirm your beliefs and assert your positions and points of view, but without resorting to arrogance and prevarication. The willingness to listen to the points of view of others is fundamental. Communication in the workplace must be made clear and clear, simultaneously promoting and encouraging return and feedback from collaborators and employees.

The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen. - Roy Moody

10. Putting passion and enthusiasm into what he does.

Only if moved by these feelings, will he be able to motivate his team towards excellence.

A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position. - John C. Maxwell

11. Resilience and resourcefulness

The leader must be able to face the crucial turning points of teamwork with courage and determination, keeping calm and sustaining the inevitable shocks of adversity with firmness and determination.

The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization. - Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers

Here is the recipe for a good leader.

Let us always remember that the leader achieves success not so much by growing as an individual, but by growing his team and individual components. When the work environment is stimulating, creativity, the birth of new ideas, the emergence of new opportunities are automatically stimulated. It is essential that between the members of the team, and between them and the leader, there is mutual trust and respect and that everyone is convinced that they are a fundamental piece for the functionality of the gear.