Do you consider yourself a leader? The truth is that very few people answer with enough confidence to give a categorical yes. Perhaps if you own a company, work as a police officer or are in charge of some management, you will create a leader. But do you really know what it is to lead?
The common paradigm regarding what a leader is rests on the idea that a person with leadership is one who has the ability to easily lead a group of people. All this in correspondence with work, sports or social activities in general.
However, if you analyze the matter well, the leader is linked in a certain way with the notion of authority rather than a member of the group he guides. Therefore, we can affirm that there are two outstanding paradigms regarding the notion of leader: the leader as an authority and the leader as a guide.
If you have reached this post, it is because you may feel that you can be a leader or that you are looking to optimize your leadership, if you consider that you already have it. The truth does not matter the cause, because we can all be leaders and it is very likely that at this moment many are without realizing it.
Remember something, having a hierarchy, or representing a superior function in a company or in some social activity does not mean that you are a leader or that you are exercising leadership. The true leader is one who is capable of discovering the unique value of his participation in a social group.
If you want to self-assess yourself and discover if you are really leading, just ask yourself three things about the group you think you are leading: does my participation in this group really change its functioning or do they work the same if I am not there? What is my real contribution? Do my colleagues consider my contribution valuable?
Now, everything boils down to finding out if it will be possible for your contribution in that group to make the work dynamics positive or improved. If you find something special to contribute that no other person can give to the group, then you will begin to exercise leadership, even if you have not considered doing so.
Every human being is a potential leader, as long as he is willing to recognize his abilities and skills to use them as a common good, adding value to the dynamics of a social group. Being a leader of leaders is a higher level, but it is based on the same premise.
Instructions
Traditionally it is thought that leaders must have certain special characteristics that differentiate them from the rest of the people. Perhaps some divine gift or the development of some social competence in a greater proportion than others, that which gives them the plus to be able to lead.
How many articles have you read with titles that categorize the different types of leaders? They catalog the leaders according to each area of development. For example, they label academic leaders as those who undertake in the academy, create a school and people follow them; they claim that political leaders are the ones who get the most followers and promote revolutions. And the most popular, the so-called religious leaders, to whom they attribute divine gifts and messianic traits, and so on.
We are not going to give you a list of characteristics here so that you can identify another or identify yourself as a leader. The truth of the matter is that if we start from the premise that the leader is the participant who provides crucial value for dynamic activation in a group, the classifications would be infinite, and the list of traits eternal.
The characteristics of every leader are the same characteristics of any human being, with the difference that the leader may or may not be aware of the “value” he has in his group. Notice well that we emphasize value and not “power”.
To specify the characteristics of a leader, you only have to focus on a single word, its “value”. Of course all participants have a value ; that is, they are valuable for the functioning of the group. However, there will always be a trigger, that person or several people who will awaken the dynamics of a group.
How to identify the leaders? Evaluating the dynamics of the group in its active presence and in its passive presence, not in its absence. Remember, it is not necessary to leave the leader of the group for the dynamics to change, if the leader simply deactivates the change will be noticed immediately.
Understanding that we can all lead, you no longer need to wonder whether or not you can be a leader, whether or not you have what it takes to become a leader. So, you probably have a desire to lead or to test yourself to see if you are a leader.
Now, before going into the matter, it is necessary to tear down the myth about what it is to “be a good leader”. There is no such thing as good or bad leaders, leadership is exercised or it is not exercised. Now, if you are thinking about what it means to exercise authority for better or worse, that is another matter.
- Be careful not to confuse the terms, don’t let the parrot go. It is not the same to exercise authority as to exercise leadership; nor is it the same to have a hierarchy and give orders to add value to a work team.
- Although it is not about recipes to be a leader, nor will you find a YouTube tutorial that really shows you the step by step to be a leader , you can pay attention to certain “attitudes” that you need to let flow in order to be a leader.
- Note that “attitudes” is highlighted so you don’t confuse it with “aptitudes” which are something else. Skills in different areas may be super-developed or very underdeveloped, and in reality, the outcome of leadership success may be the same.
Tips
We present the three leadership attitudes that you have to let flow:
Self esteem
- Before a group can value your participation you have to value yourself. This is extremely important, even if it seems trivial. Many people do not exercise leadership because they think they do not have enough skills to do so.
- For example, are you afraid of speaking in public? Who told you that this was necessary to be a leader? Did you not know that today digital leaders are some of the most followed human beings in history, and they may never need to speak personally in front of an audience.
- So stop bullying yourself, get rid of the chip that business marketing sold you and let out the leader in you.
Self-regulation
- It is not true that self-regulation is a skill that is trained, it is a decision in the attitude. Many claim that with practice it develops, but that is not 100% true. Self-regulation exists for survival; therefore, in moments of alarm, it is triggered automatically, it is just a matter of being aware of those moments of alarm, it is a matter of knowing how to identify the circumstances.
- For example, interpreted from another point of view, self-regulation is part of the adaptation of every living being in an environment. Evolution forces humans to modify their behavior for their benefit, this is not necessarily a special ability that is developed, it is something that already comes by nature in our ability to socialize, it is called
- Therefore, a living organism transferred to a different environment is at risk of dying if it does not adapt. Human beings, by natural selection of socialization, adapt to social conditions to exist within groups. What happens is that the artificial adaptation to the dynamics of the participants of a group suppresses the adaptive attitudes.
- The different species regulate themselves to evolve within nature. However, domesticated species are very different because they are susceptible to artificial influence; becoming dependent on habits that are not typical of their nature, which makes them less adaptive.
- The same thing happens with people. It is natural to adapt and collaborate to solve problems. Leading is natural to all human beings, only they have sold you the artificial idea that you need such and such skills for people to follow you, completely leaving aside the value of self-regulation; making the leader synonymous with authority or hierarchy.
- Many years ago Aristotle tried to explain this principle of leadership in his own way, which many seem to forget today: it is important to master oneself from tolerance in order to guide others.
Self appraisal
- He who knows that he is a leader does not deceive himself; he knows their weaknesses and strengths. He is aware that he cannot solve everything and that he is part of a team that he also needs. He knows that the value he brings to the group is essential to activate a positive dynamic, but that he should not make himself indispensable either.
- Constantly evaluating yourself in order to improve in making future decisions will help you to be assertive. The leader does not try to find a solution to the problem, but will motivate his team to find various solutions; because he knows that several heads are better than one. But, in addition, he will be able to choose the appropriate solution because he evaluates it with all the participants.
- Being able to measure the probabilities of an unexpected event happening, the impact it can cause to the group and its adverse consequences, can be too much for one head. When a leader decides something at risk, it is because he has the complete information to solve said problem, thanks to his work team.
- To guide is not to dominate, but rather it is a kind of guardianship where you get to know the possible solutions to the same problem. The leader is aware that he alone is not capable of assertively diagnosing the effects that any of the proposed alternatives can cause.