What is the “magic” that the successful leaders we see nowadays use to pave a path to the long- term success? While some people might think that the leaders possess some unconditional “superpowers” that allow them to achieve things that others can only dream of, the article “Top 10 Qualities of Great Leadership - Do You Have What it Takes?” from the Profiles International website points out that successful leaders have innermost qualities, not “superpowers”, that indicate the level of success the person will have as a leader. In this essay, I argue that the qualities of honesty, communication, confidence, positivity, creativity and intuition are necessary for a person to become a successful leader and have a “smooth” path to a fortunate career. The Profile International company website serves as a reliable source as it has served more than 40,000 clients over the past 20 years, providing assessment solutions that help organizations select the right people for the right job and develop them to their full potential. To add, the company has been assisting clients throughout all phases of the employee life cycle to enhance the productivity and performance of individuals, teams, and organizations.
- One of the most important qualities that a future-to-be leader needs to have is honesty. This is because, as the article emphasizes, “people want to work for a leader they can trust−a leader that has morals, values, and integrity.” Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest Presidents to lead the United States of America, also known as “Honest Abe”, didn’t achieve his success or earn that nickname by being dishonest. I strongly agree with this statement, as it is important for a leader to have certain values, such as honesty, and lead his company or business accordingly to those values if any progress is to be achieved in the future.
- Other equally important qualities that successful leaders need to have is communication and confidence. Even though the concept of communication might seem “self- evident”, many people easily forget how important it is to explain the common goals that the team should be looking up to. Otherwise, “ the employees won’t understand the leader’s mission, goals, and vision”, leading to a possible failure not only in the communication, but in the overall business as well. In other words, the employees need to understand clearly what they are working for, why they have to do a certain task and not the other, as well as what is the ultimate goal they are trying to achieve. Another quality- confidence- comes into play if, for example, the concept of communication does not work out as well as expected earlier. I support the claim that great leaders should always try to remain calm and clear- minded even when the situation seems to be slipping out of their hands; good leaders don’t run around, shout or have stress outbreaks once an unexpected obstacles comes in front of them. Instead, as the writing explains, if the leader is not “confident with the organization in a situation”, then he needs to be “confident in his own leadership skills.” The main task, in other words, is to maintain a happy and healthy environment no matter what difficulties the business or company needs to go through.
- Living in a super- busy society nowadays requires leaders to maintain not only a healthy environment in their workforce, but also an equally stable environment in their own “mind”. That is, if an individual is seeking to become a productive and successful leader, he or she must retain the quality of positivity. I believe that it is crucial, especially during difficult and nerve- wracking situations, to stay positive and be able to look at the bright side of the events, even when everything seems to be depressingly dark and unfortunate. This is because the leader, nobody else, is the main figure in the on-going “chaos”, as he or she is “setting the tone for the work day” and the attitude that the leader uses “directly affects those under the leadership”.
- The last, but not least, are the “powers” that the most successful leaders we see nowadays use to be able to go forward and achieve as many great things as possible. The “magic” of the qualities of creativity and intuition, therefore, need to be understood as well as the other aforementioned qualities if any kind of progress is to be achieved in the leader’s path to success. It is well known that in any kind of business life there always are situations that cannot be seen a year, a week or even a day before they strike the entire business community. In times like this, however, it’s up to the true leader “to think outside the box to find a solution”. The well- known leader Henry Ford faced a situation like this when demand for his vehicles was so high he couldn’t possibly keep up. Instead of making the obvious decision to hire more people, he thought with creativity and developed the assembly line. I agree that the concept of intuition is also closely related to the quality of positivity, as the most successful leaders in today’s society needed to “learn” it in order to be able to stand where they are today. This is because today individuals are often faced with situations that cannot be found in the textbooks, and for which they might not be prepared as leaders. In these cases, however, the leaders “have to draw upon their instincts, past experiences, and mentors for help in these complicated situations”.
All in all, some of the people in the global society might speculate that the most successful leaders we see nowadays received some special “magic” or “powers” in order to be able to receive the success that most individuals can only dream of. In fact, however, one needs to look deeper and think about other factors, such as the qualities of the leaders, that made it possible for them to get where they are today and understand that being a successful leader means developing one’s personality and trying to come up with solutions that were never heard of before.
Questions that I will be trying to answer in the future research:
- What are the situations that helped some of the most popular leaders to start off their path to success?
- What are the factors that could influence the person and make him a better leader?
- What methods do leaders use in order to be more productive, reach better results and, therefore, be more successful?
- Does the country the person lives in influence the level of success he or she can have as a leader?
- Does the age of the person influence the amount of success he or she will have as a leader?
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