Leadership qualities

Success is relative in nature as it differs from person to person depending on various factors like the person's position, social status and the circumstances of his/her life.
Success is all about SELF GROWTH before a person becomes a Leader but after becoming a Leader, Success is all about growing others. We come across Leaders in all walks of our lives. They are people who step forward in guiding, mentoring and motivating us towards realisation of a common goal. The basic functions of a leader in an Organization can be discussed as follows:

1.It starts with hiring the right person for the right position so as to ensure that the work flow continues with out any major hurdle on its way.
2.He needs to evaluate the performance of his team members regularly and look after the non performers.
3. Motivate, guide and support team members to improve their performances.
Encourage them to build self confidence which will energize them towards achievement of the desired goal.

Leaders carry huge responsibilities on their shoulders in the process. They face a new challenge everyday while they perform balancing tasks.These set of complicated tasks calls for a set of desired qualities in a leader, which of which are inborn qualities and few can be mastered through structured training. These reminds me of the age old debate : "Are Leaders born or made?".
A few of the most desirable qualities of a Leader can be as follows:

1. Integrity: A Leader is a man of values. He/she always speak the truth and keep their word. They take responsibility for past actions, admit mistakes and correct it immediately. A good leader is one who takes all the responsibility when something goes wrong and generously pass around the appreciation to the team members when met with success. They always abide by the Laws of the state/Country. They believe in winning using the right means abiding by the rules.

2. Intelligence: Sometimes people confuse Education with Intelligence. Intelligence in an inborn quality but Eduacation can be gained through interest and effort.A good leaders also possess the quality of Emotional Intelligence in addition to IQ. They know how to respect the feelings of others as well as of their own.

3. Maturity: Ability to handle stress and setbacks is also an important quality of a good leader.They are neither carried away by defeats nor by success. They are confident but are not arrogant. They usually have a sense of humour especially about themselves.

4. Positive energy: They always carry a positive approach towards life and enthuse their team members with positive energy as well. They try to look for the positive side of everything, be it a person they meet or a circumstance of life. They are usually extroverts and optimists. They also have the ability to start a conversation with a stranger. They start their day with enthusiasm and positive energy. They love to work and never complain about working hard.

5. Persuasion Skills: Ability to energise others is a quality of a person with positive energy. Leaders require strong persuasion skills to be able to communicate effectively and define objectives clearly. They need to inspire their team members to achieve the unachievable using their strong persuasion skills.

6. Courage: Leaders need to take difficult decisions which requires tremendous levels of Courage and strength of mind.Inorder to take a decision, they need to analyse a situation from every possible angle.It requires Courage to take difficult decisions and then put them into action.

7. Execute: The most important functional quality of a leader is to get things done threough others. When a plan is made, it becomes important to execute the plan against many unexpected hurdles, obstacles and resistance.

8. Passion: Deep, intense and sincere interest towards the task, job or work is passion.Leaders feel passionately about their Organization, Colleagues and also Competitors.They love to learn and grow. They tend to be passionate about everything. "They have juice for life in their veins" say Jack Welch in his famous book 'Winning'.

9. Authenticity: It is the quality of authencity which makes a Leader popular and reliable among all. Self Confidence and Conviction make a leader bold and decisive.

10. Vision: A man without vision is a blind man. Vision and foresightedness are the most important qualities which sets a leader apart from the rest of the crowd. A leader has the ability to imagine the unimaginable.