It Takes A Lot Of Courage!

Copyright © Success Network Group
www.SuccessNetworkGroup.com


The role of a leader demands the courage to act in the best interests of the people in your team, our country, and around the planet.

Fear is a normal state. In the face of danger, hardship, and the unknown, it takes courage to stay focused on your goal.

Persistence, no matter what, takes courage and forges leadership. This quality of leadership is not a skill set, it is a belief system. Once you know the importance of your mission, the courage to accomplish it will follow. Once you know your why, you will discover how.

Courage takes many forms:

1. Seek the truth: The truth may not be pleasant. It may even be a personal threat or a threat to your mission. But you must know the truth in order to deal with it and to lead your team.

2. Have faith: Your faith in yourself, your mission and your resources must come from the depths of your belief. Do you believe that your skills, talents and abilities will enable to you be successful? Do you have strong faith? This is a priority!

3. Seek humility: Effective leaders remain humble. Although they may gain power, resources, recognition and success, arrogance and conceit leave no room for effectiveness and results in the non-existence of loyalty from your team.

4. Live an ethical life: It takes a special courage to resist many of the temptations that come with leadership and power. Without your own ethics, you’ll be lost. Keep your ethics (and morals) to the highest standards!

5. Become involved: Set a good example by getting involved. Stay sensitive to the challenges and troubles around you — the world needs leaders who care and take action. You simply can't make a difference if you don't get involved. Make it a rule that you will never ask somebody to do something that you would not do yourself! We live by this rule. If we ask on of our team members to perform a task, they can rest assured that we would do it, or have done it, ourselves!

6. Believe in something: This includes the courage to question and confirm your beliefs from time to time. Your beliefs will actually grow stronger when you allow them to be challenged and validated.

7. Reject cynicism: Cynics don't inspire people, solve problems or provide positive action. Realistic optimism will nourish progress. Stay as far away from negativity as possible. Keep positive thoughts and a positive attitude at all times!

8. Resist social and peer pressure: Once you know what you're doing and believe in yourself and your mission, you'll be able to turn away from the threats of jealousy and conformity. Create your own definition of success and never "sell out" to outside pressures and distractions. If you "sell out", your team will lose respect for you and they will no longer see you as a strong leader, because you will no longer be one!

9. Speak out: It takes courage to be verbal about your beliefs and convictions when they could be met with criticism or ridicule. Good leaders don't back down from defending their beliefs and they stand behind their team members at all times!

10. Be controversial: Creating controversy just to get attention is not leadership. Leaders know that controversy goes with the territory, however, and they must be strong enough to face whatever controversy presents itself along the path to accomplishing their mission. Find a way to resolve the conflict efficiently, effectively and to the satisfaction of all parties involved and continue to move forward towards your goal.

11. Assume responsibility: You are accountable not only for your own actions, but for those of your followers. When they know you're behind them, their loyalty will grow and they will be behind you as well.

12. Be a leader at home: Good leadership begins with good parenting. Providing good leadership examples to children is one of the most powerful things you can do to help them become outstanding citizens, and possibly even great leaders themselves one day.

13. Stand for something: Leaders are passionate in proactive ways. Be a person who seeks solutions, rather than one who points out problems. Find your WHY and you will discover your HOW!

14. Be persistent: Courageous leaders understand that the changes and sacrifices we make now will have an impact in the future — whether that future is the next quarter or the next century. They know there must be compromises and patience. They have the ability to plant trees under which they will never sit and endure the criticism of those who don't understand why they keep watering them.

15. Serve Others: Placing an importance on service may mean putting others before you. A service attitude in your organization means your followers put customers first. True service goes beyond slogans and promises, it means ensuring satisfaction from those you serve. "Service to many leads to greatness." {Jim Rohn}

16. Follow when required: Knowing when to step down and follow takes wisdom and humility. This may come when you've reached your goal, or it may need to come along the way, when you need the perspective of a lower position in the organization. If you decide to share your power and leadership, or to resign it as necessary, do it wholeheartedly and with grace, knowing that you are actually moving forward even as you follow.


As Always ... Make it a GREAT day!

About the Author:

Lou and Robin Bonaventura have been Professional
Network Marketers for the past 4 years. They attribute
much of their success to personal development and
consistent learning. Visit their Learning Center
for more insight into how personal development can
benefit you.

Leadership Exposed

Copyright © Success Network Group
www.SuccessNetworkGroup.com


Much has been written about leadership: rules, pointers, styles, and biographies of inspiring leaders throughout world history. But there are certain leadership ideas that we fail to recognize and realize in the course of reading books. Here is a short list of things you thought you knew about leadership.

1. Leaders come in different flavors: There are all different types of leaders and you will probably encounter more than one type in your lifetime. Formal leaders are those we elect into positions or offices such as the senators, congressmen, and presidents of local clubs. Informal leaders or those we look up to by virtue of their wisdom and experience such as in the case of the elders of a tribe, or our grandparents; or by virtue of their expertise and contribution on a given field such as Albert Einstein in the field of Theoretical Physics and Leonardo da Vinci in the field of the Arts. Both formal and informal leaders practice a combination of leadership styles.

• Lewin’s three basic leadership styles – authoritative, participative, and delegative

• Likert’s four leadership styles – exploitive authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative, and participative

• Goleman’s six emotional leadership styles - visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding.

2. Leadership is a process of becoming: Although certain people seem to be born with innate leadership qualities, without the right environment and exposure, they may fail to develop their full potential. Similar to learning how to ride a bicycle, you can also learn how to become a leader and hone your leadership abilities. Knowledge on leadership theories and skills may be formally gained by enrolling in leadership seminars, workshops, and conferences. Daily interactions with people provide the opportunity to observe and practice leadership theories. Together, formal and informal learning will help you gain leadership attitudes, gain leadership insights, and thus furthering the cycle of learning. You don't become a leader in one day and just stop. Life-long learning is important in becoming a good leader, for each day brings new experiences that put your knowledge, skills, and attitude to the test.

3. Leadership starts with you: The best way to develop leadership qualities is to apply them in your own life. I'm sure you've heard the phrase “action speaks louder than words.” Leaders are always in the limelight. Keep in mind that your credibility as a leader depends much on your actions: your interaction with your family, friends, and co-workers; your way of managing your personal and organizational responsibilities; and even the way you talk with the newspaper vendor across the street. You can't just "talk the talk," you have to "walk the walk." Repeated actions become habits. Habits in turn form a person’s character. Steven Covey’s book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People provides good insights on how you can achieve personal leadership.

4. Leadership is shared: Leadership is not the sole responsibility of one person, but rather a shared responsibility among members of an emerging team. A leader belongs to a group. Each member has responsibilities to fulfill. Formal leadership positions are merely added responsibilities aside from their responsibilities as members of the team. Effective leadership requires members to do their share of work. Starting as a mere group of individuals, members and leaders work towards the formation of an effective team. In this light, social interaction plays a major role in leadership. To learn how to work together requires a great deal of trust amongst leaders and members of an emerging team. Trust is built upon actions and not merely on words. When mutual respect exists, trust is fostered and confidence is built.

5. Leadership styles depend on the situation: How come dictatorship works for Singapore but not in the United States of America? Aside from culture, beliefs, value system, and form of government, the current situation of a nation also affects the leadership styles used by its formal leaders. There is no rule that only one style can be used. Most of the time, leaders employ a combination of leadership styles depending on the situation. In emergency situations such as periods of war and calamity, decision-making is a matter of life and death. Thus, a nation’s leader may not have the luxury of consulting with all departments to arrive at crucial decisions. The case is of course different in times of peace and order. Different sectors and other branches of government can freely interact and participate in governance. Another case in point is in leading organizations. When the staffs are highly motivated and competent, a combination of high delegative and moderate participative styles of leadership is most appropriate. But if the staffs have low competence and low commitment, a combination of high coaching, high supporting, and high directing behavior from organizational leaders is required.

Now that you are aware of these things, keep in mind that there are always ideas that we think we already know. There are concepts we take for granted, but they are actually the most useful insights on leadership.


As Always ... Make it a GREAT day!

About the Author:

Lou and Robin Bonaventura have been Professional
Network Marketers for the past 4 years. They attribute
much of their success to personal development and
consistent learning. Visit their Learning Center
for more insight into how personal development can
benefit you.