Leadership Sureshots

Whether you choose to be just the leader of your own life, or whether you occupy a leadership position in a business organization, a political party, or another social institution; you will find these useful hints applicable everywhere. Most of them you may already be aware of. Nevertheless, keep on reading. A refresher in this area is never wasted.

• Always treat others as an end of their own, and not as a means to an end. The German philosopher Emmanuel Kant was one of the first to eternalize this piece of righteousness. All it means is: don’t use others for purposes that may be unknown to them, but that feed your egotistical goals. Perceive every other person as a dignified being and be honest about your motives. That will be much more appreciated.

• Realize that every person makes decisions based on his or her value system. This awareness is especially crucial when you are dealing with people from different cultures. An individual’s value system is determined by his or her upbringing, backgrounds, and personality. However, even if you are dealing with people from a similar background as yours, you should still refrain from trying to predict what decisions they will make. People are surprising creatures, and on top of that: they change over time. A person who made a certain decision a year, a month, or even a week ago, may decide entirely different today, based on the experiences he or she had during the time in between. Therefore: accept people as they are, and never assume that you know what their next step will be. 

• Time, or the lack thereof, can influence the decisions people make. When someone has more time and information at hand, he or she will probably come to different conclusions than when time is a constraint.

• People have a tendency to maintain certain priorities depending on their age and the spirit of the time they grew up in. The people who experienced the great depression, for instance, or others who have endured a stern war situation may be more inclined to base their decisions on frugality than on other rational aspects. And, although there will be deviations within that category as well, is remains an important issue to keep in mind. 

• What you may consider an absolute taboo may not be a problem at all to another. This hint is, again, based on individuals’ backgrounds. Therefore: never condemn people based on their standpoints. Rather, try to understand them. And, if you are really interested, try to find out what drives their motives. This may be crucial when you are the one in charge of setting the ethical standards in an organization.

• Integrity is an unbelievably important leadership trait. Everybody wants his or her leader to be honest and well motivated. However, we should not forget that leaders are human beings too and that, like each of us, they may have at least one trait or action they are not too proud of. It may therefore be wise not to be too hard in your judgments, and to reflect each person’s situation to your own life.

• Performance measures create room for unethical behavior by the ones who have to meet them. Therefore: be careful in formulating your goals. Don’t make them too hard to achieve, and try as much as possible to eliminate room for multiple interpretations. If, for instance, you set a certain minimum number of units to be produced as the determining success rate for a project, you should make sure that the bylines are clear also. People are inventive beings: They will always find a way to reach a goal with as little effort as possible, and with protection of their perception. Remember: there are many acts that are unethical, but legal!

• Five of the most successful and widely accepted traits of a leader are: self-confidence, empathy, trustworthiness, emotional stability, and audacity. The last mentioned should assure that the leader will gain experience in his or her life. Every successful person should possess these 5 skills at least to a certain level. For some lines of duty certain skills will be higher valued than others, but they should basically all be present.

• Every person has certain dark traits. Those are usually nothing else than the exaggerated version of positive characteristics. A quick temper, impulsiveness and arrogance, may be the overexerted manifestation of self-confidence and focus. Perfectionism and all its negative consequences can be seen as the excessive form of reliability and punctuality. The appropriate warning here is that dark traits don’t show in application interviews. They usually hide until a situation of high stress occurs.

• Experienced people can handle stress situations better, whereas intellectuals handle unfamiliar challenges better. Of course both have their disadvantages: the experienced as well as the highly educated leader can make wrong decisions based on the arrogance that supersedes his or her position. The best leader is one who obtains sufficient education, but opens him- or herself for experience as well.

• Creativity is a beautiful trait. It is surely proper in leadership. But a great leader does not necessarily have to be a creative person. As long as he or she can communicate his or her visions well, the creative souls can be attracted from outside to transform the envisioned goals into reality.

Panic is your worst enemy. Unfortunately it is the hardest mental state to master, as no one gets challenged by a seriously high-pressure situation on a daily basis, so no one knows how he or she will respond to a challenge until it happens. But if you try to maintain your calm, no matter how difficult the circumstances, you will have an advantage over others who don’t.  Look at it this way: as a leader you have the advantage that serenity will prevent you from getting a stroke or a heart attack, while your followers will benefit as well, as your rationality will brush off onto them. A flustered leader will have a group of anxious, incompetent followers, while a well-balanced leader will have an unruffled, evenhanded group of followers, which will lead to success in almost all cases.

About the Author:

Joan Marques emigrated from Suriname, South America, to California, U.S., in 1998. She holds a doctorate in Organizational Leadership, a Master’s in Business Administration, and is currently a university instructor in Business and Management in Burbank, California. You may visit her web sites at http://www.joanmarques.com and http://www.spiritcounts.com

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