The 5 Main Ingredients of a Great Leader

In this post I want to give you the main ingredients or attributes a good leader must have. A great leader is someone who has made a difference in the lives of millions.

Whether it’s a leadership of millions, thousands, hundreds, or just a few dozen, there are certain attributes of a leader that shine through. Though some may assume that great leaders are born and not made, we all know that’s not true. With the right motives, training, hard work and persistence you too can be a great leader. It doesn’t matter if your desire is to be the leader of a large company or your own small business the attributes are the same. Here is what I´m talking about.

Desire – First and foremost is your desire to lead, your desire to succeed, to be great. Leadership takes a great deal of work. The prime motivator is usually passion, this is something that will take you higher in your life. Passion to be the best , the fastest, passion to be the biggest, do you get what I´m trying to say? Ask yourself, what is the most important thing for you or for your team. Then guide them to creating even more motivation. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great is ever achieved without passion.”

Vision – “It takes a man of vision to write on water” that´s what Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown prince of Dubai says; and he´s right, with vision you can do achieve whatever you want. Know how you’ll get from Point A to Point B. You can’t make a plan without a detailed vision of what you hope to achieve.

Creativity – This is where your plan starts. You have the vision of what you want to achieve, now you set it out step by step. You know where you want to end up, but you need the road map to get there, the plan to get you and your workers, family or parishioners to the ultimate goal. This is where you ask your people the challenging questions and get them running with the ideas you’ve generated and inspire them to be creative as well.

Expertise – Naturally, the more expert you are concerning your company, or business, the better. Experience is not necessarily a lot of knowledge and information, you have to know what to do with that knowledge and how to do it. You must hone your information gathering abilities. Knowledge is power. It’s also essential that your people recognize and respect your expertise and trust your abilities to lead them. Let your group see you as the expert, and know they can trust you to guide them to success.

Respect – Not less important than the other attributes is the respect. Respect for others is essential in a great leader. You should compliment others when they show progress. Always praise in public and condemn in private. This shows respect for your workers, family and parishioners as fellow human beings. As the leader of any group, it’s your responsibility to help them sort out their conflicts. Remember, their problems are your problems. Acknowledge their strengths and their weaknesses. On the positive side, you should also help them celebrate their achievements and accomplishments. And you should listen to their ideas and suggestions.

Now you know what it takes to become a great leader, ask yourself if you have all these attributes, if you don´t, work hard until you achieve it.

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