Developing a Leader

Fred Emerson Dela Peña

The secret to being a successful leader is the capability to direct others successfully.

The development and fallout of your business will never grow past your ability to lead

and influence others. In order to become an effective leader many different qualities and

skills are needed. However, nine important traits or abilities reveal leaders from

followers and they include someone who is: influential, prioritized, integrative, a creator

positive change, a problem solver, able to maintain good attitude, able to work with
people, a visioning person, and be self-disciplined.

The ability to influence workers is important because to influence is to have the ability to

obtain followers. Everybody influences someone else, and everyone is influenced by

someone as well. But, to be an effective influencer you have to understand what type of

leader you are and grow upon that. There are five levels of leadership. Level one is

someone who uses their title or position to lead. This level is the least effective because

people follow you because they have to. Level two is someone who gets people to work

for them that are not obligated to do so. A person on this level will lead by

interrelationships in which each person or thing depends on or is affected by the others

and at this level people will follow because they want to. Level three is someone who

makes results and change occur. At this level people follow you because of what you

have done for the business. Level four is someone who empowers and motivates not

only himself but others as well. At this level people follow because of what you have

done for them. Level five is someone who is someone who has proven themselves a

true leader over many years. At this level people will follow you because of who you are

and what you represent. Knowing what level of leadership you are in is important to

growing and becoming better at influencing others and the higher up the ladder of

leadership you go, the longer it takes to go to the next level.

things of high importance separates the leaders from the followers. Success can be

defined as the achievement of something planned. These days it's not about how hard

you work, it's about how smart you work and how well you plan. Prioritizing just consist

of listing the order of your most important assignments to the least important. To do this,

list things of high importance / high urgency: these things should be done first. Next,

make a list of things of high importance / low urgency: set due dates for these

assignments and work them into your planner. Next, make a list of things of low
importance / high urgency: make ways of effectively doing these assignments with as

little personal input. Last, make a list of things of low importance / low urgency: use

these assignments as fillers for when you are not busy. In order to evaluate things of

most important to things of least importance ask yourself these questions: what is

required of me? What gives me the greatest return? What is most rewarding? Then in

order to keep your priorities straight, evaluate those questions (required/return/reward),

eliminate what you are doing that someone else could do, and estimate how long each

assignment will take you. Prioritizing will allow you to be more efficient and more

effective. However, efficiency is the basis for survival. Effectiveness is the basis for

success.

Having integrity is an important trait in a leader because integrity means to

be complete and unified an in order to run a business leader and employees must be on

the same page. Integrity isn't necessarily what we do, but it's who we are. And who we

are determines what we do. The more reliable they are to others, the more confidence

and trust they will have in their vision, and it's allows them to influence their lives.

Integrity is the base for knowing what they ought to do verse what they want to do.

Gaining the trust of employees mean they have to be genuine and do the same as what

they expect from employees. The secret to growing and moving back is integrity. They

make themselves to be. In order to be a leader to must exhibit: honesty, fulfillment,

vision, and inspiration to them employees to get them to believe and trust in the

decisions you make for the business.

Being able to create positive change is important in being a leader because when the

leader changes, so does the business. Therefore if what the leader change is positive it

will have a positive effect on the business. To be a good leader they have to be open

minded to new ideas. New ideas bring about change and the leader's responsibility is to
make this change positive and effective. A business won't grow if it does not open up to

these new ideas instead of staying at its comfort level. Too many people become

satisfied with where they are and therefore fear change. Change will never be

successful when people engage in negative thinking. Therefore leaders must

develop trust with their employees. The more faith people have in their leader, the more

willing they will be to change. To be a good leader, however, they can not only ask for

change, them have to show it. The leader must put the employee first and convince

them that change will benefit them to gain the trust and support needed. Growth equals

change so businesses will always change. It's all a matter of how the leader engages

himself to make it as positive and effective as possible.

Problem solving is important in a leader because problems are always going to happen

and it is a leader responsibility to correct the problem as effectively as possible for

maximum outcome. Leaders have to change their perspective, however, not their

problem. They have to realize they cannot choose their problem but they can choose

their attitude towards solving it. The real test of a leader is their ability to recognize a

problem before it becomes an even bigger and be on the lookout for signs of an

upcoming ordeal and fix it. In order to fix a problem a leader must, first, define the

problem. The must be able to look beyond the symptoms and find the main source of
the dilemma. Next, a leader has to prioritize the problem. They can't try to tackle all their

problems at once, they have to line them up one by one and take them one at a time.

Next, a leader has to define the problem. They must simply ask themselves, "What is

happening to cause this problem? Where did I start"" After determining the problem and

selecting the best possible outcome, a leader must, lastly, form principles and polices to

prevent the problem from requiring.

The attitude is very important in a leader because without a good attitude they will never

reach their full potential. Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you
react to it. The expectations of a leader greatly influence their attitudes. It has less to do

with a leaders position than is does their disposition. How he treats his employees is

how they will perform. The leader's attitude affects their attitude. In order for a leader to

have a good attitude they have to analysis himself. They have to realize it's not so much

what happens to them but what happens in them. A leader has to be able to run a

business with the mindset "I will make this business the best it can be." It's not all about

changing just your attitude, however. In order to change your attitude you have to

change your behaviors. You must have a constant positive behavior. Behaving positively

will change your attitude to be positive automatically and allow you to be a better leader.

A leader must have strong people skills because they must be able to influence people

to influence others, not just influence people to follow them. The development and

growth of the workers determines the development and growth of the business. The

more people the leader is able to mold and change, the better the degree of their

dreams will be. There are three levels of people/work skills. Level one is a person who

works better with people, known as a follower. Level two is a person who helps people

work better, known as a manager. The last level is a person who develops people better

people to work, known as a leader. The best way for a company to grow is to develop

the growth of the followers. Workers are divided into four groups. The first group of
workers is people who do less than what they are asked to do. The second group of

workers is people who do what they are told to do but no more. The third group of

people is people who do things without being asked to. The last group of workers is

people who inspire other people to do work. How a leader treats his employees

determines what group, or how hard they will work for them. If a leader treats his

workers with great respect he will inurn receive great work.

A vision is important for a leader to have because without a vision they have nothing to

lead to. A leader has to in vision what they want to accomplish because the vision is
heat motivates them to motivate other people. There are four vision levels for people.

Level one is the people who don't have a vision at all, so they are wanderers. Level two

are the people who have a vision but don't pursue it on their own, so they are followers.

Level three is people who have a vision and pursue it, so they are achievers. The last

level, level four, is people who have a vision, pursue it, and get people to follow them on

their quest, so they are leaders. Leaders have to convince there followers of the vision

and make sure everyone sees the same vision they see. A leader cannot just dream

about a nice vision, that they think might bring success to a business however, they

must dream big about something they know will change their business and the world,

because what you see is what you get.

A leader must have self-discipline because it can determine your success or failure. In

order for someone to succeed they have to have control of their desires and dreams.

Discipline is doing things you don't want to do in order to achieve things you do want. To

be self-disciplined you have to start with yourself. You have to change yourself before

you can change other people. A leader has to get things done when they have to be

finished, in order to prevent one large thing that has to be completed. They must

recognize what they are doing to be tomorrow, is what they are becoming today. They

must pay now and play latter. Success depends on how well you do the things you
enjoy, and how you perform on the duties you dislike. also, a great leader will never set

themselves above there follower except in carrying out responsibilities because integrity

plays a big part in having self-discipline and the amount of effort and heart a person’s

puts into changing themselves to be better will determine the success of their business.

So in order to become the best leader a person can become, all the traits and skills

need to be practiced and applied to their life. The fact is this world needs leaders.

Without their dreams of a better world and drive to succeed we would not be where we

are today. being influential, prioritized, integrative, a creator of positive change, a

person, and self-disciplined will bring out the leader within a person, allow them to

become successful, and allow them to touch people’s lives that changes the world.