#leadership by not swearing

Leadership.

It is one of those terms that there are a million different interpretations for. Similar to quality. For me, Leadership has always come down to five main abilities. Rather than me describe them, here are five quotes that I feel capture the essence of the five abilities.

1) Ability to Inspire

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

2) Diplomacy

“Diplomacy is more than saying or doing the right things at the right time, it is avoiding saying or doing the wrong things at any time.”

3) Ability to always remain calm in the face of pressure

“In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves”

4) Courage to listen and accommodate

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

5) Ability to create a Shared Vision of success and influencing the team to travel there together. Never directing or telling.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea”

Why am I mentioning this?

In Canada, there has been two recent occurrences of politicians using profanity recently. Some people have spoken out against this while others have respected their ‘passion’ and how they respect leaders with ‘passion’. I feel we must be careful to not confuse a lack of decorum, control, and restraint with passion. The ends do not justify the means. Just because we believe our cause to be noble, does not allow us to use any means necessary to be used to achieve it.

One more thing

One thing not mentioned previously about leadership is the commitment to the team. Besides the Shared Vision of success, I feel leaders also nurture a Shared Vision of the team. They nurture individual and team growth as the team creates the solution. At the end of it, the team has created a solution and a greater team.

“In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves”

As leaders, if we let ourselves be angry we have essentially put ourselves in front of the team. And the truth.

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