Five Traits of Leadership
It’s mainly believed among our society that leaders are naturally born, and that a select few individuals are able to become leaders. This is simply not the case because while we think that something that is considered a big achievement is impossible, it’s actually not that hard to achieve. There are just five simple tasks to accomplish and you’ll be on your way!:
- Replace your bad habits with good habits
- Private Victory
- Challenge social stigmas
- Effective communication
- Adaptability
Replace bad habits with good habits.
While this task is easier said than done, a good leader has to learn how to discipline themselves. You can’t simply say “Well, that’s just who I am and I can’t change.” In fact, human beings are meant to change. From the moment we were born to our last breaths, we have changed psychologically and physically. As a result, it is possible to change your bad habits and replace them with good habits, even if it’s a lot of work.
Private Victory
As a leader, you must win over the public. However, if you don’t believe in your ideas, it’ll be more of a challenge to accomplish said task. This means that you have to have confidence in yourself and your goals. When people see someone who has confidence and holds himself at a high esteem, they’ll almost immediately start to have faith and confidence in that person and their goals.
Challenge social stigmas
Now, I’m not telling you to go and question everything in your life and commit crimes. But, leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and George Washington were recognized because they challenged the norm. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for racial equality because he challenged the unfortunate norm at the time of discrimination, and George Washington was not only tall (which helped intimidate the Continental Army), but he also stood against the British redcoats to fight for America’s independence. He also became our first president because the Congress believed that a leader like him who not only won the people over, but also continued to challenge the British should be fit to be president.
Effective communication
Communication is not just important for private relationships, but also public ones. Lack of communication with your audience will result in lost trust and less of an inclination to believe what you say. Even if you make a mistake in accomplishing your goals, it is vital that you address it because are you being honest, but you’re also allowing yourself to be vulnerable, which makes your audience like you more since they sympathize or empathize with you.
Adaptability
Something that makes the public idealize you is that they believe in your common sense. While that statement seems ludicrous at first, let’s think about it for a moment. When you were a child, you might have looked up to your parents, both literally and figuratively. Why? Because you felt that they were capable of doing simple things effectively. Many of those simple tasks require common sense. When someone seems to show a lack of common sense, you’ll tend to look down on them in a usual circumstance. Leadership requires you to take what you know and adapt that knowledge into different situations. You don’t need to know everything in order to be a leader, but by adapting to circumstances, it makes people think you know everything because you know what to do when encountering an obstacle.
Leadership isn’t just something that can be slapped on a resume. It’s a quality that not many people achieve because they simply try too hard. When it comes to virtues like patience, integrity, or bravery, we may think that they are innate abilities that a handful of us have, but take it as it is: Patience is just keeping your cool, integrity is responsibility, and bravery is confidence. For the most part, tolerance, responsibility, and confidence are characteristics that can be nurtured. All it takes is your willpower and determination to traverse you through that mental development.
