Column Chronicles: Signs of leadership

Signs of leadership

Frank Cotolo
March 24, 2016

Certain qualities seem to be shared by people who show they can be great leaders. Sometimes these people don't know themselves what drives them to have their abilities; sometimes a lot of them behave badly aside from the times they show great leadership. Let's look at what makes people thrive at leadership; perhaps we have enough to stop being a follower and become a leader.

The first and utmost feature in a great leader is courage. Without courage, no one can expect to inspire others, no less ask them to stand before a firing squad. People, especially scared people, need someone to watch over their actions and become tough by example. It has been proven that people inspired by courage will act courageously and sometimes even pick up a check at dinner.

Strong communication abilities are always present in great leaders. In fact, good leaders don't become great leaders without them.

Some mediocre leaders have become good leaders but lose any chance to have the ultimate status of "great" if they fail to communicate at an exceptional level.

Great leadership is always in league with generosity. There are no stingy leaders that are great. You cannot even be austere if you are a great leader. Without complete and unadulterated generosity people will not follow you into the bathroom, no less into battle.

Humility drips from great leaders. If a person says, "Follow me, I am greater than you," never follow them because that is not a statement from someone with humility. A leader with humility shows followers that he or she can do the dirty work needed, even if doing it more than once makes he or she complain that he or she shouldn't be doing basic chores.

A great leader is always approachable, making approachibilty another strong characteristic. If you are thinking of behind inspired by someone and you ask them for a moment of their time and he or she says something like, "You need to make an appointment, buster, because my time is precious," then you may have found the wrong leader.

A great leader has passion and shows it every chance he or she can display it. By passion I mean that he or she goes all out to voice opinions and confidence about their direction. That, too, is a sign of a great leader. To have confidence and direction is important and actually may be two separate qualities, though one without the other may be enough, it is hard to tell unless all of the other elements mentioned fall into place.

You may by now realize that you have what it takes to be a great leader but you have not been emphasizing the traits enough to become one. Well, buster, it is about time to take the reins and excel in whatever you do and lead those less fortunate than you into an influential journey that neither matters nor involves me.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.