[September 9, 2016] The wearing of stylish clothes or handsome looks doesn’t make a person a leader or someone to be respected. Today, many of our senior leaders look and act like anything but what they are supposed to be. A leader will lack credibility unless that leader can live the part of a real leader.
Only by living the role of a leader completely and unabashedly can a person become what they wish to be. They must eat, sleep, and live it. At the instant that leader stops working to achieve the spirit of a senior leader that is the point in which they fail themselves and their followers. The leader must become the vitalizing spark that ignites the fire in the individual to new levels of courage, openness, and creativity.
One of my major themes here at theLeaderMaker.com is that no one is born a leader. Some folks may have superior traits that make it easier to be a leader but that is all. While they may have luck by possessing certain attributes, any person with the right mindset can learn the ways of a leader. Anyone with the burning desire and commitment can obtain the highest positions within any organization.
One’s physical appearance, how they dress, the knowledge they posses, and their social network – while having an influence – does not ultimately determine their success as a leader, especially as a senior leader with great responsibilities. If a person has the strength of mind to attain the role of leader and, having acquired it, lives by the philosophy of being the very best, only then will that leader have achieved the goal of true leadership.
There is an old adage that goes something like this; “As a man thinketh, so is he.”1 Truth can be found in this adage and it may be interpreted to mean that a person with fixed determination to be a leader, then and only then can they become one. Conversely, a person of timid style will never inspire confidence in others and will never truly be a great leader.
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- Loosely based on Proverbs 23:7 which states, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”