Contrary to popular belief, leaders aren’t born. They evolve via a never-ending process of learning, unlearning, and re-learning. They motivate, inspire, and guide other people to achieve a common goal. This is not an easy task to accomplish.
In your journey toward becoming an inspiring leader, you must be enlightened, composed, devoted, and courageous.
Not only should you be capable of withstanding the ups and downs in your journey, but you also need to be your team members’ source of strength.
Inspirational leaders are crucial for a team’s success and possess a unique blend of confidence and humility.
Here are six factors that are critical in helping the rise of great, inspiring leaders:
1. Gaining Expertise
All influential leaders have one thing in common: They can inspire their team members. They hone their technical expertise to know exactly what to do when people come to them for advice.
The most notable leaders are deeply enlightened with respect to their fields.
The ability to inspire a group of individuals comes with emotional intelligence. Comprehending human psychology helps you understand your team’s needs, aspirations, strengths, and limitations.
This will enable you to connect with them personally and develop a relationship of trust with them. This is crucial as it will allow your team members to rely on your judgment and counsel.
Trust your team and encourage them to achieve their targets by acknowledging their efforts. You should be able to guide them all the way to success by sharing your examples, insights, and experiences with them.
2. Be Authentic
Authenticity is what separates good leaders from great leaders. Throughout history, we see that inspirational leaders owned up to their innate personalities and demanded respect for the same.
Whether introverted or extroverted, sophisticated or quirky, witty or serious, they were completely true to who they were. They refused to mold themselves to society’s expectations. Instead, they used their moral fiber to gain trust.
To become an inspirational leader, you need to honor your commitments and align your deeds with your actions. You also need to establish a transparent system where there is no margin for corruption, backstabbing, and office politics.
An example of an authentic leader is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He encourages diversity and invites people belonging to different backgrounds to work together for the growth of the economy. It’s safe to say he accomplished a lot domestically with this approach in a very short time.
3. Clear Vision
Having a clear vision is what differentiates leaders from managers. The most influential visionary leaders in history, like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Napoleon Bonaparte, all had exciting notions of what they wished to achieve.
This ability to have a clear vision and look at the big picture allowed these leaders to evoke the emotions of their followers.
If you wish to drive change as a leader, you need to identify a vision and motivate your team members to work with you. This is crucial as no matter how big or small a goal is, it cannot be achieved alone. Use your communication skills to convince your team of the validity of your vision.
The key here is to use honest statements to attain team support instead of making unattainable claims.
Ambitious and extravagant claims are effective in acquiring interest. But unless you follow through on your claims, this interest is bound to be short-lived.
4. Commit to Your Team
The most influential leaders lead by example because the greatest levels of motivation can only be reaped by maintaining an unhinging commitment to objectives and values.
Work alongside your team members instead of simply monitoring their progress. By doing so, you’ll be able to exhibit that the defined objectives are, in fact, achievable. This enhances team spirit and generates a can-do attitude among your team members.
In addition to this, pursue your vision whilst maintaining the highest moral and moral and ethical standards. And encourage your team members to do the same.
5. Take Calculated Risks
Noteworthy accomplishments can only be made by taking calculated risks and challenging preconceptions. This requires a tremendous amount of courage both to excel and to fail.
Influential leaders like Richard Branson do not view failure as a stopping point. In fact, they view it as an opportunity to improve and grow.
Therefore, you need to let the passion for your cause fuel you with the resilience and fearlessness required to see a vision through. Your passion will invoke courage in your team members as well.
6. Be Empathetic
Empathy is the one trait that makes leaders appealing to a diverse set of followers. People like Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama are clear examples of how to win hearts by reaching out and connecting with people at a human level.
Try to look at situations by putting yourself in other people’s shoes.
Develop the habit of listening more and speaking less, as it will enable you to understand your team members at a root level.
This puts you in a much better position to motivate and guide them. This will also enable you to become a better judge of character and consequently enable you to make well-informed decisions.
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