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If you want to
be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to
become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the
ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and
opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a
parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.
What's important in leadership is refining your skills. All
great leaders keep working on themselves until they become
effective. Here are some specifics:
1. Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you
must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide
range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength.
It's not even a good substitute.
2. Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake
kindness for weakness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a
certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell
somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate
enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell
it like it is and not deal in delusion.
3. Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to
win the day. To build your influence, you've got to walk in
front of your group. You've got to be willing to take the
first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first
sign of trouble.
4. You've got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You
can't get to the high life by being timid. Some people
mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a God-like
word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the
human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is
something unique about the human drama versus the rest of
life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the
stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars.
So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity
is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.
5. Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day.
It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in
community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But
the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without
being arrogant. In fact, I believe the worst kind of
arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It's when you don't
know that you don't know. Now that kind of arrogance is
intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can
tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant,
that's just too much to take.
6. Develop humour without folly. That's important for a
leader. In leadership, we learn that it's okay to be witty,
but not silly. It's okay to be fun, but not foolish.
7. Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself
the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some
people call it tragic, but I'd like to think it's unique.
The whole drama of life is unique. It's fascinating. And
I've found that the skills that work well for one leader may
not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of
leadership can be adapted to work well for just about
everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.
. . . To learn more from Jim Rohn, visit
JimRohn.com. Subscribe to Jim's free e-zine. |
