Leadership is one of those ephemeral phrases that somehow we may be tempted to believe is best applied to others. After-all, we tell ourselves, "who do I think I am?
Good Question!
Every single time we make a proactive choice we exercise leadership. Every time we act without waiting to be invited to act, we exercise leadership.
According to the Institute of Leadership and Management there are core qualities of this thing called leadership which they define as the ability to be able to flex your style, understand yourself and others and have the ability to moderate your own behaviour.
Can you flex your style? Do you understand yourself and others? Do you have the ability to moderate your own behaviour? If the answer is yes to some degree or another then read on....
The core qualities outlined by the ILM are as follows:
1. Be authentic: be yourself, be real, not pretentious, comfortable in your own skin.
2 Exercise sound judgement, evaluate options, take calculated risks and listen to the advise of others
3. Engage others by understanding what is important to other people and respond accordingly
4. Reflect and think about how you behave and admit when you get it wrong
5. Encourage others to see what is possible and believe that it is achievable
Interesting.... nothing about having an MBA, or formal authority, or a title, or letters after your name, or co-authoring a book!
In that case perhaps leadership is best not reserved for the few, perhaps its something that should be embraced by the many. Perhaps leadership is not about being "there" in terms of role or position but rather is something that can be exercised from here....after-all!
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