How to Be a Leader

A leader is someone whom others trust and consistently look to for guidance. Age or status within a group may create assumptions about who will lead, but a true leader inspires steadfast loyalty, earning the trust of others. Leadership is a responsibility but also an honor.

The following are essential steps in becoming a successful leader.

Steps :

1. Solve problems.
The first step towards becoming a leader is to look around and find ways to make the world a better place. Observe your surroundings and listen to people. How can you help? Discover what your talents are, develop them, and focus on applying them towards making a difference. Think of problems in the broader sense - they're not always easy to define. Look for needs, niches, conflicts, and problems.

2. Think of the big picture.
As you're solving problems, you might notice patterns, and wonder if many of those problems are symptoms of a deeper, bigger problem. Thoreau once said, "For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, one is hacking at the root." Take a step back and try to find the root. The thing about the deeper problem is that it's not something anybody can solve alone; it'll require a group effort, which is where your role as a leader comes into play.

3. Be proactive.
If you've got these ideas in your mind about what the deeper issues are, you can probably predict the problems that will crop up as a result. Instead of waiting for those problems to appear, take steps to prevent them. If you can't prevent them, then you can at least prepare. Before for you chase the idea fully remember to ask yourself and your team what you will have to stop doing in order to stop doing. This is fundamental to a strategy call Just Ask Leadership

Make decisions, and take responsibility for the consequences. In order to exert influence and tackle bigger problems, you're going to need decision-making power, and those decisions will affect the people who grant you that power. This is as much a responsibility as it is an honor. Not only do you need to be able to make sound decisions, but you also need to be willing to be held accountable to them. If things go wrong, people will assume it's your fault (whether it is or not). Think of yourself as the captain of a ship; the fate of the ship is essentially in your hands, and it's up to you to steer everyone in the right direction. So exercise wisdom when calling the shots; hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The best leaders reflect behaviors and make decisions they want the group to emulate. An insecure leader often becomes a tyrant, demanding behaviors from their group, while a hypocritical leader loses the group's respect.

4. Decision making is critical to great leadership and only after you have exhausted all alternative to delegate those decisions down to the appropriate level in the organization.
Often leaders find they are in a place where co-workers want the leader to make the decision - if you fall into this trap you will be taking away accountability to those who work with you. All they will say is, "I just did what you said."

5. Share your vision.
As a leader, you can see the bigger issues at hand, but you can also see how things could be so much better if we could just remove those obstacles. To get people to help you in changing things, you need to share that positive vision with them. Inspire them. Motivate them. Guide them. Show them how their actions are bringing everyone closer to that dream. "Most important, leaders can conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations and unite them in pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts."[1] When building this vision don't feel you have to create it alone (this is often a novice mistake). Draw as many of your organization and work at building a share vision by asking your co-workers where they think you should go. The more work you do together asking the less work you will need to do in selling and explaining the vision later.

6. Remember that it's not all about you.
The greatest leaders saw their role as a means to an end, and themselves as an instrument of a deeper purpose; any glory, prestige, or wealth was a side effect rather than a motivation. For the most long-lasting results, share your vision and listen to the ideas of others. Think of yourself as the beginning of a chain reaction--once it's begun, you can step away and it'll continue to happen without any effort on your part. "A leader is best when people barely know s/he exists; when his/her work is done, his/her aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.