What
is a leader?
A leader
is a person that is capable of influencing others.
He is the
reference of a group (be it a sports team, a university course, a
theatre group, a department in a company, etc).
He is the
person who “voices his opinion” within the group and his
opinion is highly valued.
Leadership
has nothing to do with the hierarchical position a leader has:
A person
can hold a manager’s position and not be the leader and on the
contrary, a person can be a group leader without being a manger/boss.
The boss
decides what needs to be done in virtue of the authority that his
hierarchical position awards him.
A leader,
without necessarily having this hierarchical authority, also has the
capability to decide how a group acts according to his influence,
which is determined by “moral authority” that he exercises
on the rest of the team.
Members
of the group gain confidence knowing that at the head of the group
there is a leader.
A leader
is characterized by his skill to drive teams:
Leaders
try to get the most out of each team member. They get each team member
to work towards a common objective (be it to win a championship, improve
the company’s results, win the general election, etc).
Besides
this capacity to organize teams, a leader is also characterized by
his vision of the future.
A leader
is a person that looks at things in the long term, and creates some
highly ambitious objectives for the organization and manages to animate
his team in trying to reach them.
A leader
anticipates change ahead of his competitors.
A person
that doesn’t have this vision of the future could be a good
organizer, a good co-ordinator, but never an authentic leader.
With the
objectives in mind, a leader tries to achieve the best for the company
and for everyone of his team members.
He makes
his team members identify themselves with the marked goals and makes
the goals their own and thus makes them fight for them with great
determination.
A person
who is only interested in his future welfare could be a leader of
an organization. However, he would end up rejecting his position.
Once a
leader has his future vision defined, he will fight with authentic
passion to achieve the objectives.
The leader
represents, for the rest of the group, an authentic example of dedication,
enthusiasm and courage.
A person
that has a great future vision but that lacks the ability to carry
out tasks could be a great link to strategy, but never a leader.
Finally,
it is necessary to point out that a leader is not someone who wants
to be one, but someone who can be on.
To be a
leader you need excellent personal qualities that not everyone has.
Some people
are born with these qualities, although you can also acquire them
by learning them and through experience.