Being an effective leader will require you to be brave and unlock the door to your inner attic, where your childhood dreams lie, going inside to the heart.
Here are 10 easy steps you can take to awaken the leader in you and rekindle your passion for greatness:
1.Be Yourself.
Use your relationships with mentors and your research on great leaders as models or reference points to work from, but never copy or imitate them like a parrot.Everyone has vastly different leadership styles. History books are filled with leaders whoare soft-spoken, introverted, and quiet, all the way to the other extreme of being outspoken, extroverted, and loud, and everything in between.
2. Dream Big.If you want to be larger than life, you need a dream that’s larger than life. Small dreams won’t serve you or anyone else. It takes the same amount of time to dream small than it does to dream big. So be Big and be Bold! Write down your One Biggest Dream. The one that excites you the most. Remember, don’t be small and realistic; be bold and unrealistic!
3. Follow Your Bliss.Regardless of how busy you are, always take time to do what you love doing. Being an alive and vital person vitalizes others. When you are pursuingyour passions, people around you cannot help but feel impassioned by your presence.This will make you a charismatic leader. Whatever it is that you enjoy doing, be it writing, acting, painting, drawing, photography, sports, reading, dancing, networking, orworking on entrepreneurial ventures, set aside time every week, ideally two or threehours a day, to pursue these activities.
4. SWOT Yourself.SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This is a useful key to gain access to self knowledge, self-remembering, and self-honoring. Start by listing all your Strengths including your accomplishments. Then writedown all your Weaknesses and what needs to be improved.
Make sure to include anydoubts, anxieties, fears, and worries that you may have. These are the demons anddragons guarding the door to your inner attic. By bringing them to conscious awareness you can begin to slay them. Then proceed by listing all the Opportunities you see available to you for using your strengths. Finally, write down all the Threats or obstacles that are currently blocking you or that you think you will encounter along the way to achieving your dreams.
5. Vision.Without a vision, we perish. If you can’t see yourself winning that award and feel the tears of triumph streaming down your face, it’s unlikely you will be able to lead yourself or others to victory. Visualize what it would be like accomplishing your dream.See it, smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it in your gut.
6. Perseverance.Victory belongs to those who want it the most and stay in it the longest. Now that you have a dream, make sure you take consistent action every day. I recommend doing at least 5 things every day that will move you closer to your dream.
7. Honour Your Word.Every time you break your word, you lose power. Successful leaders keep their word and their promises. You can accumulate all the toys and riches in the world, but you only have one reputation in life. Your word is gold. Honour it.
8. Get a Mentor.
Find yourself a mentor. Preferably someone who has already achieved a high degree of success in your field. Don’t be afraid to ask. You’ve got nothing to lose.They even have a free personal profile you can fill out in order to potentially find you a suitable mentor. In addition to mentors, take time to study autobiographies of great leaders that you admire. Learn everything you can from their lives and model some of their successful behaviors.
9. Humility. Leadership starts with humility. To be a highly successful leader, you must first humble yourself like a little child and be willing to serve others. Nobody wants to follow someone who is arrogant. Be humble as a child, always curious, always hungry and thirsty for knowledge. For what is excellence but knowledge plus knowledge plus knowledge - always wanting to better yourself, always improving, always growing.When you are humble, you become genuinely interested in people because you want to learn from them.
10. Give.Finally, be a giver. Leaders are givers. By giving, you activate a universal law as sound as gravity: .life gives to the giver, and takes from the taker.. The more you give,the more you get. If you want more love, respect, support, and compassion, give love,give respect, give support, and give compassion. Be a mentor to others. Give back to yourcommunity. As a leader, the only way to get what you want, is by helping enough peopleget what they want first.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
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