How to develop leadership qualities

If you have understood yourself properly, you are already a leader. Leader to someone. Leader is someone who leads a group of people or team in day to day activities. Leadership qualities should come out of you, its not someone should make you a leader but its all about you. Don't ever ask your manager that you want to be a leader. Your leadership qualities should be recognized by others automatically. In my opinion every one is a leader today. Don't be disappointed by the fact that your designation is not a Project Lead or a team lead. In this article I'm going talk about what are the qualities of a good leader. In my view, leader is not the one who tracks you what people are doing in a day very often. Not at all, leadership is more of how you build relationship with people around you and how you listen to what problems the people are facing. Leadership is all about showing how you can help others and being role model that others that others can follow you.

10 Leadership Qualities according to my view

1. Be at Work early: Be at work before your subordinates are at office for work. This is very important and shows that how well dedicated you are at work. Going to office early has so many advantages, you should not do this simply because you want to be a leader. This is more of a habit that needs to be developed. In my opinion this is the biggest quality that a leader must have. I've read somewhere that human mind thinks better at early in the morning time. So you can think better at the morning how you can perform better in the day by starting your day early.

2. Listen what others are saying: Listening is a skill by itself, people who listen to others and understand them better always win, don't ever pose your nose in between the conversation. This not only hurts the person talking but also brings a bad impression.  If you do not understand what others are saying then you can provide your inputs well. Remember this, listening requires lot of patience. So be patient to listen and then think how best you can reply to the people. I recently attended a training on BACnet network, there was a guy who constantly kept questioning the presenter for every sentence that he speaks, this not only annoyed the entire audience but also made people to talk about that person. Don't just stop people and ask questions for the shake of asking questions.

3. Find positive qualities from people: Everyone is good at something, focus on that than finding what the person is bad at and highlighting it to all. I believe that every person is good at certain things which we should understand and encourage him/her in that area. It does not make sense to say 'Hey you are bad at certain things than telling you are good at certain things you continue to do that'. The simple theory  is that grasp always what a person is good at and forget what the person is bad at. This is the way of thinking positive in each and every aspect.

4. Have sense of humor: Having little sense of humor can solve any problems, this is the great way to handle difficult people in your life. Don't ever get into hard conversations, no one likes that instead see how you can handle situations in better way that no one is hurt but brings smile on peoples' face. I have seen that having sense of humor can solve complex problems in fact. The important fact is that talking to people in such a way that no one is hurt or upset makes you a good leader. Everyone wants to be happy at the end of the day.

5.  Be a friend : Be a good friend to everyone no matter what position you are in your organization. This explains a lot. If you want to hear the real voice of your subordinates, you should be very friendly to people around you. Don't scare people by explaining 100s of company policies. If you scare people, they will never come to you and you will fail do a successful business.

6. Be customer oriented: In order to do a successful business, we need to listen to everyone including our customers. More importantly the customers. We are happy because our customers are happy. Talk to the customers frequently and understand their voice. Its very important to build relationship with the customers that we deal with in our businesses. This is very true if you are working in a product based company and your customers are using products developed by you years together. A great leader is the one who understands the customers better and serves exactly what they want. So be customer oriented. End of the day the customer has to be delighted with your services.

7. Make others leader : The real leader is the one who brings many other leaders. Yes, recognize the leadership qualities among the people you are dealing with in day to day activities. Encourage people in the areas that they are interested in. Explain the improvement opportunities with them. Its not good to treat employees as just "objects" and just you can command them every time, each employee is unique and has some unique characteristics which is very important for a leader to recognize and promote them.

8. Be strait to the point : In any conversations, be straight to the point, this will save everyone's time. If somebody is beating around the bush, bring him/her to the point. This is very important because by having people talk what exactly they want talk can avoid long meetings. The leader tries to understand the intent of what other person is speaking about and summarizes and proceeds further.

9. Keep up your promises : Do what you are promised someone to do. This brings great confidence on you by the people around you.  Don't ever promise people which you are not sure to do. If you are not sure on doing something, be clear while promising the people. If you do not do what you've promised, it brings negative impact on you. Don't commit the work to anyone including your customers which you are not sure you can complete it in a given date.

10. Dress Code: I personally don't believe this is effective. however the dress you wear can speak a lot about you. It brings a formal sense among everyone who you deal with daily. A good office attire brings professionalism for you and makes you more comfortable to have business talks with your team members or your senior leadership members.

These are just my views on how a leader should act and perform. Its all how I think and feel, there are no hard rules to follow to become a leader. I strongly believe that be who you are and what you are. Obviously no one can change your behaviors but its you who can change to have leadership qualities.  I have heard that there are many trainings on leadership qualities, but I'm not sure how much they can help people develop leadership qualities. Its all you who must think and change. Any comments are welcome.