Leadership is the most important single factor in determining business success or failure in our competitive, turbulent, fast-moving economy.
The quality of leadership is the decisive strength or weakness of organizations and institutions. The ability to step up to the plate and provide the necessary leadership is the key determinant of achievement in all human activities. And there has never been a greater need for leaders at all levels than there is today.
The qualities of leadership and the personal attributes of leaders have been studied for more than 2,500 years, going back to Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War. There are currently more than 5,000 different books, articles, and commentaries on leaders and leadership, each of which gives insights and ideas into ways that individuals can learn to become better leaders in their personal and business lives.
Perhaps the best news is that leaders are made, not born. A person becomes a leader when a leader is needed and the individual rises to the occasion. Many men and women have lived average lives for many years until a situation arises that requires that they step forward and accept the mantle of leadership, with all that that entails.
You become a leader in your business and in the world around you by practicing the qualities and behaviours of leaders who have gone before you. Like any set of skills, leadership is developed by practice and repetition, over and over again, until you master it. The rewards for becoming a leader are tremendous. As a leader, you earn the respect, esteem, and support of the people around you. You enjoy a greater sense of control and personal power in every part of your life. You become capable of achieving goals and objectives far beyond the ordinary.
The more you behave like a leader, the more positive you feel about yourself. You enjoy higher levels of self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride. You feel stronger and smarter and more capable of getting results through others. You become more effective in bringing about positive changes in your work and personal life. The Laws of Leadership have been identified and discussed over and over throughout the centuries. They are taught in military schools, colleges, and universities. They are taught in business schools and practiced every day in the businesses and organizations of our society. These laws and principles are followed by men and women everywhere who emerge to assume positions of power and authority whenever the situation demands it.
When you begin to think and act the way leaders do and you apply the Laws of Leadership to your life and work, you will attract to yourself opportunities to use more of your talents and abilities at ever-higher levels. The more you exercise the qualities of leadership in small matters, the more you will be given an opportunity to be a leader in larger matters. The better you fulfil your responsibilities today, right where you are, the greater the responsibilities that will be entrusted to you in the future. It is in your hands.
The Law of Integrity
Great business leadership is characterized by honesty, truthfulness, and straight dealing with every person, under all circumstances.
This law requires that you be impeccably honest with yourself and others. As Emerson said, “Guard your integrity as a sacred thing. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
Integrity lies at the core of leadership, at the heart of the leader. Everything you do revolves around the person you really are inside. And the person you really are inside is always demonstrated by your actions, the things you do and say.
Leadership has been defined as “the ability to get followers.” For people to follow you, to subordinate their interests to yours, they must be able to believe in you and be willing to commit their time, money, and energy to you.
Leadership is therefore a trust conferred upon you by others. To earn this trust, to deserve this trust, you must be true to yourself. You must live in truth with yourself. Only then can you live in truth with everyone else in your life and work.
Perhaps the most important thing you do as a leader is to be a good role model. Lead by example, Walk the talk, Live the life. Always carry yourself as though everyone is watching, even when no one is watching.
Good leaders are completely reliable. People can take them at their word and trust that they will do what they say. They make promises carefully, and then they always keep their word.
A key mark of integrity in human relations is consistency, both internal and external. The best leaders are consistent from one day to die next, from one situation to the next. Because of this internal consistency, these leaders are trusted. People know what to expect. There are no surprises.
Being consistent also means that you treat everyone the same. You do not have one persona for an important client and another for a subordinate. As Thomas Carlyle wrote, “You can tell a big person by the way he treats little people.”
There are two basic types of leadership in business today, transactional and transformational. Transactional leadership is the ability to direct people, manage resources, and get the job done. But transformational leadership, the most important form of leadership today, is the ability to motivate, inspire, and bring people to higher levels of performance.
Transformational leadership is the ability to touch people emotionally, to empower them to be more and to contribute more than they ever have before. This ability enables transformational leaders to elicit extraordinary performance from ordinary people.
Leaders think about the future. They think long term. They think about how they want to be viewed by others, now and later in life. Because of this long time perspective, they never sacrifice their integrity or their reputations for short-term gain or profit.
There is a direct relationship between your feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem on the one hand and your levels of integrity and truthfulness on the other. The more you live your life according to your values, the better and happier you feel about yourself, no matter what happens around you.
How you can apply this law immediately:
- Resolve to live in truth with yourself and with every person and situation in your life. Listen to your body and trust your intuition. Identify the main stress points and people problems in your life and then ask yourself, What is the right thing to do in this situation to resolve this problem and alleviate this stress?
- Ask yourself: What kind of a company would my company be if everyone in it was just like me? What personal habits or behaviours would you need to change to answer this question in the affirmative? Whatever they are, do something today toward becoming the very best person you can be.
The Law of Courage
The ability to make decisions and act boldly in the face of setbacks and adversity is the key to greatness in leadership.
Winston Churchill once said, “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.”
Leaders have the courage to make decisions and to take action in the face of doubt and uncertainty, with no guarantees of success. Your ability to launch, to step out in faith, even when there is a chance of loss or failure, is the mark of leadership. Leadership is not lack of fear or absence of fear. Leadership is control of fear – mastery of fear.
Everyone is afraid; leaders are simply those who face their fears and take action in spite of their fears. And you develop the habit of courage by acting courageously whenever courage is called for.
The natural reaction of most people is to avoid or to back away from the things they fear. But when you force yourself to resist this natural tendency and do the opposite, when you instead move toward the thing you fear, your fear shrinks and loses its power over you.
Glenn Ford, the actor, once said, “If you do not do the thing you fear, then the fear controls your life.“
