Leadership… do you have it in you?

Leadership … do you have it in you?

Leadership. We tend to be intrigued by it, whatever the form of power behind it is. But what is a leader? It is not a formal position or role in an organization (like ‘product manager’). It can basically be anyone, who steps forward, speaks up, and mobilizes people to make things happen. In the context of business, the critical difference between a leader and a manager is that people want to follow the leader, while they just have to obey the manager.

Why is leadership USEFUL? Three reasons:

1. A leader sparks intrinsic motivation

This is the type of motivation that you’ll want, both with employees and customers. Their commitment is stronger, which has value in itself.

2. A leader initiates development

They come up with ideas for development. This is particularly useful where people are immersed in their job and focused at meeting targets.

3. A leader mobilizes change

When inspired by a leader, people may actually want to contribute to making certain changes.

Does that sound cool enough to want to become a leader? Then here are the typical four skills that leaders have, according to much research on this. Leaders appear to be …

That didn’t sound too hard, right? Did you already tick all the boxes for yourself? Well, here’s the catch … You need to be any of these far above average, and all of them … in the eyes of others! Since we all have these skills to some degree, this is quite harder than it looks. If you look at yourself through the eyes of strangers, is it still that obvious? Maybe not. Nevertheless, researchers insist that all of these skills can be trained. So go for it!