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06 Oct 09 Make Yourself Into A Leader

Becoming a leader is different than becoming a manager at your place of work.  Not everyone in management knows how to lead, and the problem that sort of manager, is that they don’t last very long.  To truly become a manager worth your mettle and paycheck, able to lead a team to success, you have to develop your leadership skills.  Developing those skills is hard work, and can take a very long time.  But in the end becoming a true leader is worth your time, because leaders always distinguish themselves.  Because the leadership quality is fairly rare, employers are always willing to stick with a good one.

Think of what you would expect from a leader, and what you hope to gain out of becoming one.  If it helps make a list of each, preferably side by side, to figure out your motivation.  These factors will give you a guide to follow.  By writing out what you want, and what you expect, you have a good idea of whether or not being a leader works for you.  In most cases being a leader means taking a back seat for the better good of the team sometimes.  If you aren’t prepared to do that, you’ll have a hard time developing your leadership skills.

To be a leader you have to be prepared to take charge.  Being a leader is just what the title implies, you are expected to lead your followers, or your team.  The best way to do that is to lead by example.  You have to be the best performer, so that the rest of the team can feed off your leadership.  Nobody wants to follow a coworker that can’t achieve goals as well as they can.  This doesn’t mean you have to be the best at doing the job, but rather the best at meeting goals and following directions.  This way you inspire through example, making yourself a natural leader before you ever have the title.

Finally, you have to be the anchor of the team.  When the cards look like they’re stacked against everyone, you have to be the person to bring the motivation to get the job done.  A leader motivates the team by any means available.  So if you want to be a leader, you have to be able to stay positive to help your team get the job done, no matter the situation.

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