When I found myself leading a team for the first time, I didn’t know what I was doing. So I did what most successful leaders do, I immersed myself in the study of leadership – what works and what doesn’t. Along the way this exercise in self improvement became a passion as the principles of leadership opened my eyes to seeing business in completely new ways.
Over the past 33 years, I’ve pulled together 17 crucial factors that affect successful leadership.
These factors are motivation, tolerance, trust, purpose, vision, attitude, awareness, determination, commitment, endeavor, tenacity, belief, faith, inspiration, self-control, willpower and patience.
Motivation
I put number one as motivation. But there is a catch. What motivates one person may not do the same for another. So the key is to find the motivation switch that works on the people around you and learn how to turn that switch on.
Tolerance
Tolerance is simply listening to and respecting other people’s views. You don’t have to agree with them but it’s important to understand why people think the way they do and let them know the same about your views. Easier said than done of course, but nonetheless it’s important that others understand your thoughts and vision in order for you to lead them.
Trust
Trust is part of something I call BLT: believe, like and trust. All three must be earned. Having reviewed failed relationships and business practices over the years, most of them, in my view, are connected to the failure of belief, like and trust.
Purpose
Next, is purpose. What is it? Don’t just muse over it and let it go: write it down. Make it concrete and definable. Then know the purpose of your team. Your ability to pull together those possibly overlapping purposes will be key to leading your team and ensuring you all have the one purpose.
More factors will be explored in next weeks’ blog post.