What does leadership mean to you and what do you consider traits of a good leader? This is of course a potentially unanswerable question because what most people don't usually consider, are the conditions. People look at a person and consider someone as leadership material or not without looking at the case by case needs that may require leadership. As they say, fair weather doesn't make skilled sailors, but some people are better at leadership under stress than when conditions are fair and optimal - does that make them a bad leader?
One of the things I find interesting around leadership is the idea that there are born leaders (not true) or that leaders can be trained to be leaders (partly true). Leaders might not be born, but they are made. The problem that I find is that people often misunderstand this position, as they assume it is about a person developing leadership skills, which is possible to train like any skill, but this isn't what makes a leader.
There is only one thing that makes a person a leader.
A follower.
It doesn't matter how competent one is in the art of leadership, without followers, it is all just theoretical. This doesn't mean that developing the skills is a waste of time as if one is able to build a following, those skills come in handy as they help develop the relationship between leader and follower, they help build trust.
People follow leaders because they have the sense that they can trust the direction in which they go, but this is not to be confused with influencers. Having influence doesn't make a leader, or at least not one that is trusted. A lot of the social media "influencers" aren't leaders, they are just people who have a lot of followers and while they are necessary for a leader as well, the relationship is quite different. Not only that, one can have a lot of followers due to publicity and popularity and possess none of the leadership skills.
An influencer is someone who can affect decision making, a leader is someone who people are willing to proxy as the decision maker. People follow the choices of the leader as if they made the choice themselves. I find it quite intriguing that people willingly follow the decisions of a person and then blame that person if they don't like the destination. This is the problem with proxying out decisions, the first decision to proxy overrides the decisions the proxy makes - the blame is ill-directed.
Pretty much, whenever someone plays "follow the leader" there is fine print that says,
AT YOUR OWN RISK
Like I was saying about the influence of peer groups is large, so we should choose well - choosing a leader to follow is our own responsibility and while influencers might sway our opinion, ultimately, it is up to us.
Of course, leaders aren't just people, they can be ideals to, concepts that we follow and often do not pay attention to where we are being led. A lot of political affiliation is like this, where people pick a side and then set and forget, no longer sensitive to what their side is doing, no matter how much it might have changed since they first made the decision. "Brand loyalty" - even though the brand ain't what it used to be.
People expect leaders and influencers to do the right thing and lead by example and take those they lead by the hand and drag them along. I disagree. Everyone "should" be doing the right thing and setting an example. Easier said than done of course as no matter who we are, one thing we are always is, human.
I think this is definitely one of the key differences between leaders and social media influencers - the influencers will do things for attention, while the leaders will do things because something needs to be done. They don't do it because it will gain more followers, they do it because they believe it is the right thing to do - at least for them. If people "follow their lead", who is to blame if things go awry?
As said, leaders are made by the people who follow them into doing whatever the leader does, influencers are made by people doing what the influencer says. There is a big difference between following in one's footsteps, and going where someone tells you to go. The latter is not leadership, by my estimation of what a leader is.
I work with management levels to help them develop leadership skills and I can tell relatively soon who is going to likely make a good leader that people follow and who will likely not with a simple question.
Do I trust that this person is going to do their best?
If the answer is yes, it means that even when they make mistakes (as we all do), their followers will trust that they did their best and it didn't work out. Without that trust, a person can be influential, but not necessarily have people follow where they walk and when things go wrong, the followers disband. The other part of this is that when someone does their best, they do more than they would otherwise and when uncertain, measure twice and cut once. They make less mistakes.
Again though, I will reiterate, that a good leader in one dominion and set of conditions doesn't mean they are an all-round good leader. A good leader will understand this and surround themselves with people they trust enough to proxy and follow the lead of, when they themselves are out of their depth or understanding.
One thing I have observed often in my experience is that while people don't like being told what to do, most people will look for leadership in times of uncertainty and often, choose poorly. The reason is, they tend to follow the person who is confident that they know which way to go, not the one who has the skills and process to work it out - but leaves room for error, miscalculation and the risks of the unknown.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
People have been talking about what makes a great leader for a long time, in some respects, I disagree with the people skills verse IQ in a few comments. I, however am a jaded person at time. People skills to me seem to be an easy thing to get around, people are easily manipulated by emotional appeal, so People skills come fairly low on what I see as a leader. IQ, the smartest person in the room, skill is also down pretty low on the pole of leadership ability. The thing I see as my number one when looking at leaders is the common sense of that person. Do they have enough brains to know they need a good solid core of advisors and not just surround themselves with yes men.
Being a leader in one place, one location, one time, does not necessarily make a person a leader in another area, in another time and place. Along with a good solid foundation in common sense, they need to be able to know when there is someone better able to lead and to let them with out their ego getting in the way. A fire chief may be good at putting out fires, but do you want him to be the leader of a team of doctors trying to fix you?
This is important for sure - "wisdom" - knowing when to use what one has. I think this is one of the skills. IQ is not a great indicator of this, neither are people skills - it is another set, but kind of a bridge for all skills.
Exactly - There is a time and a place for different kinds of leaders. Horses for courses, so to speak.
It's a common trap for humans. Those that have the 'it' that makes them a leader in one area get to thinking it applies to all areas. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison both fell way into that quicksand.
A lot of times they mistake popularity for loyalty. I'm thinking sports heroes that have gone on to be dismal failures at what ever they go to after sports.
Even in a decentralized system it's fairly easy to identify leaders-and influencers. At least some in each category.
Loyalty is something SoMe influencers don't have much of as people are very disloyal and have limited attention for long-term support of anything. This is something I want to write about perhaps :)
A lot of sports people (successful) seem to get confused and think having money makes them good decision makers or business people.
Yes it is, if paying attention :)
A good leader is made. Through experiences and failures and successes. I think that a true leader can cope wigh high pressure and failures and still manage to keep themselves and their followers together. Leadership is more than influence. Leaderships leaves long lasting effects even after the leader is long gone. I notice great personalities still influencing some of today's generations. Pillars of wisdom and wit. For me, a great leaders leads the world thinking generations ahead. A thing which a mere Instagram influencer is far from achieving. True leaders, who lead not through force, lies, but by their strong character and endurance, are very rare.
Perhaps impossible - to lead one has to be in front, not with a whip at the back.
Yes. Leading by force and from the back never proved to achieve good long lasting result
I noticed the reason why most people follow an influence is to get familiarity with the influencer.
And I do really love how you distinguished a leader from an influencer.
So from what I can understand, you have point that a leader will surely try his best to do the right thing no matter.
But an influencer can give directions even though he himself is not going through that direction.
On Instagram for example, there is close to zero chance of getting feedback from a large account - which is generally run by a professional media team. There is the "glory by association" play though, where people feel like if they are up with what someone famous does in their personal lives, they are part of the "in" crowd. The ego is pretty pathetic.
Pretty much. It is also why a lot of leaders lose their leadership as, not everyone wants the burden of doing the right thing - so find an excuse to not have to - usually at someone else's expense.
Yeah I get the whole point.
Looking at my country as an example, we have leaders who have lost their position because of money looting and we still have others giving excuses of how money disappears and no record of their expenses.
I just know the world will be better if there are leaders ready to do the right thing.
We have to hold ourselves to the same standard at least.
"The reason is, they tend to follow the person who is confident that they know which way to go, not the one who has the skills and process to work it out. "
This is because we ussually confuse confidence with competence. It's also the reason that in my opinion Emotional Intelligence is much more important in helping you achieve a greater status in life let's say in favour of IQ.
What I am saying is that in general someone with great people skills but average IQ will probably do much better than someone with a high IQ but really low people skills.
Of course this varies from one domain to another, as you don't have to be a social butterlfy to be a killer programmer making a shitload of money...but I am talking about the world in general.
Yup.
I was kind of talking about this with a colleague the other day, where being a jack of all trades is part of the survival for most in the working world now, where as before it was much more about narrow skills. Domain affects this still, but in general, those with people skills will be heard and listened to more often than those without. If those with the skills also have or can get the right knowledge, they can be very productive.
That is true. I mean, this is pretty normal after all considering we are social creatures. We tend to listen more to the people we like.
Sure, that means that someone can occupy a certain position without having the skills needed just because he is likeable. He then can go and fuck things up really due to him not knowing what the hell he is doing but hey...the world ain't perfect.
Yes a person can, based on the power other people assign them. We can blame him for being a dick or whatever, but we are also the ones that put them there through our own action or inaction.
Justin Sun is a Horrible Leader... Thanks Steemit inc. NOT
My research of what is going on with my locked down Steem on Bittrex. Turns out I am collateral damage from the HF23.
https://peakd.com/hf23/@apshamilton/pro-bono-legal-opinion-for-victims-of-steem-hf23-and-bittrex
Your Opinion on this when you get a few minutes please. My steem about $80 usd currently, another $50 ish in powerdown. Plan was/is to convert to Hive.
Thanks.
Is your Steem already in your Bittrex wallet? Or did you transfer it while the wallet was closed? If it is in Bittrex, sell it for BTC and move that to wherever you want - if it is in transfer, not much you can do until they enable transactions again. For the stuff that you are powering down, you don't have to send it to bittrex - instead binance, huobi, ionomy, and probably others have Steem enabled.
Binance was my choice. We (@pooky-jax & I) bought the SafePal S1 hardware wallets. They are integrated with Binance.
I go and register, then getting verify set up to trade...
Boom...!
Florida resident are a no go. SMFH...
(short list of US. states they do not allow for some reason?)
@janton had good luck moving his to Waves
https://waves.exchange/
Who do you use?
I use binance and no huobi also for steem
This is a wonderful write up.. but what steps do you need to take to identify a good leader?
Watch how they treat themselves and, watch how they treat others. You can tell a lot by watching how people navigate others.
Thank you
Cheers for sharing the great insight, and certainly there's more than meets the eyes when it comes to the art of leadership. It's not just a simple set of requirements or conditions to tell who can, or can't be a leader and it gets far more complex than that. It's also not just the mettle that one earns through experience, but their ability to stay cool and level-headed when times get tough, and people are looking for a way out.
Some leaders are borne on their first trial and tribulation, some others take time to mould. It's different depending on the person, and I do agree that leadership is beyond a set of skills, as it takes a great strength of character too. No leader is perfect, and being able to have that trust and understanding helps to balance their decision-making, and the effect that has. It's worth it for leaders to learn and listen from the people around them when it comes to subjects that are beyond their understanding, even if they have the ability to lead people through it.