The Art Of Authentic Leadership

Whenever you are in a leadership position always have a crystal clear picture about, what your vision and purpose as a leader is. As this allows you to have a track to run on, gives you a set of criterion against which you can measure every decision you make and allows you to keep moving toward the results you are attempting to achieve.

Your intentions are your guides that point you in the direction you want to travel. The challenge is to never confuse your intentions with accomplishments. Intentions are merely guides that dictate direction, real direction and leadership comes from intentions that are acted upon.

Commit to stay aligned with your vision, ensure that your intentions will move you toward the result you desire and then take daily action to carry out your intentions. This will allow you to remain authentic as a leader and ensure that you are giving your team consistent and precise direction every day.

To be an effective leader you must be convincing, authentic, have integrity and be able to encourage and influence people to perform according to the overall vision or purpose of the team. Clearly communicate the vision and purpose to everyone in your team and ensure that they understand your intentions and their role in making those intentions possible. They must know exactly what their individual roles are and what actions they must carry out each day.

This critical process will ensure that you and your team are able to turn your intentions into the results or outcomes dictated by the vision or purpose of the team. This small shift allows you as the leader to have a consistent message and allows for more focused influence. The more focused and consistent the influence of any leader the better the results or outcomes the team will achieve.

Stop viewing the members of your team and seeing them only as they are, open your mind and become a true leader. Start to look for the potential that resides in everyone and begin to see them for what they can become. One of your roles as a leader is to help people to become more, because as they become more the team as a whole also becomes more. Commit to assist everyone in your team and apply daily influence to help them to see what they are capable of becoming. Then offer resources and guidance to allow them to grow into everything they can be and your team and the world will be a better place.

All great leaders never lead from behind, sending their underlings off to go do it. They stand up front and call out “Let’s go do it” True leaders lead by example and never expect anyone to carry out a task they would not be prepared to carry out themselves. Be the kind of leader you would be proud to follow, always be authentic and consistent and people will not only follow you, but be assets that will assist you to achieve the results you desire.