Leading vs Leadership

Good leaders are made not born. If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a never ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience.

To inspire your team into significantly higher levels of teamwork and accomplishments, there are certain things you must be, know, and do. These do not come naturally, but are acquired through continual work and study. Good leaders are continually working and studying to improve their leadership skills; they are NOT resting on their laurels.

It can be easy to talk about leadership in the theoretical sense… What qualities and traits make a good leader, which styles are appropriate, but it is in the actual practice of leadership that many people fall down. There can be a distinct difference between leadership and leading. Although some may show great potential for leadership, they fall short and even fail when it comes to actually leading a team and / or group (paid or volunteers).

Most individuals WANT to follow a person who inspires them, someone they can trust, who truly understands them and a leader who continues to increase their training & skill set in leadership. All too often, people follow leaders because they HAVE to and not because they want to. In these situations, individuals will be able to lead, but they will experience low participation and motivation levels amongst their team.

Individuals who truly care about leadership have the following items in place for paid & volunteer staff and they are communicating it regularly (verbally & written) to everyone on the team:

1) A strong vision.

2) Clear defined goals.

3) Clearly defined objectives, which provide measureable progress in the organization’s movement towards achieving the overall vision. It is essentially the strategy for turning a vision into reality.

4) Determine and assign tasks to individuals or teams that are willing & motivated to move forward with the tasks. These individuals also have to be empowered to make decisions, so they do not have to go back to the leadership with each and every decision.

5) Set up a timeline and prioritize.

6) Follow-up, check and measure, but do not over ride or undermine the authority that you gave to the individual / team.