The Essence of Leadership Traits

What are the keys to become a great leaders ? 1-Develop a service of attitude -- customer is not a department , it's the attitude -- service is the life blood of any organization, everything flow from it and nourished by it. 2-Love what you do -- many things will catch your eyes, but few will catch your heart 3-Focus priorities -- Focus on critical few, not significant many 4-Understand the soft stuff-- there are things more important than money and sex-- recognition and praised 5-Build your brand --in the race of quality, there's no finish line 6-Embrace humor and optimism --optimism is the faith that lead to achievement 7-Commit to excellence -- excellence is not an act, It's and habit 8-Take risk-- don't be afraid to go. Out the limp, that is where the fruit is 9-Reinforce core values -- things that matter most must never mercy the things that matter least 10-Earn trust -- trust, not technology, is the issues of decade --Tom Peter 11-Take action -- you can not discover new ocean unless You have the courage to lose sight of the shore -- 12-Aim for the heart-- because they don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care

How to be come a leader not follower

I was trying to find an article that I can write a response to and these article, how to become a leader not follower has came a crossed me twice. I clicked on it and reading for a little bit, it catch my attention. The article is kind of related to myself. I am in my mid twenties, and here I am, trying to figure how to lead my life, to become a leader, and lead myself to have a happy life.

How to become a leader was written by Steve Hill. Steve was talking about how most people are follower and they are happy with it; however, he pointed out that most successful people are the one who take lead and control their life. " The most successful people are leaders and make things happen for themselves by taking a positive attitude and through working very hard to reach their goals." Steve said that while he was not happy with his current job and was looking for something else that suited his skills. he went to a job conference where they have a role play of whom ever they want to be and have to act in certain ways. And when he said that he picked the chairman positions, he felt empowered, stronger and he felt like a leader, not a follower anymore. Please read this interesting article, I thought it would help if you want to become a leader, not follower. Can we help you find something? 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The most successful people are leaders and make things happen for themselves by taking a positive attitude and through working very hard to reach their goals. We are all able to become leaders and this article may help you to achieve this status. I grew up as a very nervous person, who had very little self-confidence and who was very shy. I was not happy being this way and often felt jealous of other people who were happy to speak up and take control of tasks and situations. I wanted to be one of these leaders and not the follower that I certainly had become. In my early twenties, I decided that the time had arrived to make a series of life changing decisions. I was determined to have a happy and successful life and was aware that I needed to change my whole attitude and approach to life. I was not happy at where I worked and joined an employment agency in an attempt to find alternative employment. In the reception area of the agency, I started speaking to a man who was also their hoping to find a different job. His name was Mark and we got on well and wished each other the best of luck in our quest to find work. We even exchanged phone numbers and vowed to keep each other up to date with our progress. I was then interviewed by a man who explained his plan to help me to find this new role of work. He was very bright, clever and positive and had many interesting ideas. He seemed very confident that I would soon be employed for a different company more suited to the skills which I had. At one stage of the meeting he described the scenario of a group interview. He suggested that we may be ushered into a large room with a big table. As we sat down there would be a sheet of paper asking the group to debate a particular subject. He stated that all of the people in the room would be in the same position, all looking for work, all nervous, however that in that room I could be whoever I wanted to be. He said that I needed to stand up and take the lead by stating that I would act as chairman and that if anyone had a comment that they wanted to make, that they could raise their hand. If I did this I would show my prospective employer that I was a leader. I went home and thought about this and did not believe I had it in me to act in the way that he wanted me to, as I was not a leader. Later that evening Mark phoned and all he was talking about was the group interview scenario. He also stated that there was no way that he would be able to stand up either in the way that had been described. I did not have to ever attend a group interview, but Mark did. He surprised himself by carrying out the advice and stated that after he had said his initial statement about being the chairman, that he had never felt so powerful and in control. For the rest of the day other members of the group had been regularly asking him questions as if he was some sort of team leader. He was very proud of himself and I am happy to report that he was successful at that interview and is very happy in his new position. He has also taken the success and learning experience into his social life and states that he has never had a higher self-esteem. I am very pleased for him as he is a genuine person who works very hard. He is also one of only a few friends that I can honestly say that I trust. I have taken inspiration from Mark and have entered into a career of helping people who stutter, to achieve fluency. This is something which I really enjoy and which gives me a large amount of job satisfaction. I am also far more confident than I ever have been and have at last found happiness. In conclusion we all have it in us to be a leader. We need to be brave and determined to take control and remember that all we can do in life is to try our best. We are only sure about living one life, so lets be happy and not accept second best. Be a leader in life, not a follower.

MOTIVATION

Motivation is the most essential way that lead to success. Why am I saying that? This is because if a person is not motivated, they tend to be very lazy, not proactive, and especially not happy at what they dO. The result is that you will not produce good result at what you do, not meeting the time line, and feeling unmotivated. And that is how I feel most of the time and I know most people do too. It is not easy for a person feel motivated, only if you are the lucky to be the one that truly know you love to do and have the job that you are passionate about.



A good example of unmotivation is from one of my favorite movie--Office Space. Where Peter quotes that-- you know it is not that I am lazy, it's just that I don't care. Peter has been working for a fortune 500 company and does not like his job. For the entire work, he said that he only spend fifteen minutes of real work for a week. And the rest of the time he just play game, doing nothing and zoned out for an hour. Peter has no motivation to work. He hate his job. And you don't want to stuck in the same situation as him.

I know that it is hard to feel motivated all the time. but if you have no energy, lazy and feeling useless, try one of these tips that I get from zenhabits.com
This articles provide a 16 ways to get yourself motivated, and I think it is very helpful. so when you feel like you are lazy and unmotivated try this.

1. Start one goal at a time--select the most important goal that you think you need to change or accomplished. Setting goals is very important to help yourself feeling motivated; however, don't try to archive too many goals at the same time. Select a small goal that is meaningful and worth archiving for yourself first. Zenhabits.com suggested that when he feel unmotivated is when he had too many goals or too much going on in his life. I agree with what he have said, I tried to dedicated my self to a 100 days lead project that I have set out 4 goals that I want to accoblished in 100 days. I was very motivated for the first week-- i feel very great about myself, my four goals are to wakeup and going to sleep at the same time everyday, exercise right when i woke up, trying to finished one book in a month, and lastly, writing journal every day before I go to sleep. After the first week, I feel exhausted, and could not archive four goals the same time and then I came back to feel unmotivated again. This is because I feel overload. And the unaccoblishment has drained myself out.

2. Find inspiration -- Zenhabits.com said that finding inspiration through reading sucessful stories about the goals you want to archieve. This way will giving you hopes that if other can do it, you can too. A silly example from my experience experience would be --I want to get myself in good shape, skinny, toned legs and abs , and so I tried to read how Victoria Secret Models exercise routine is like to get the inspiration to maybe get to where they are.

3. Get excited-- the goal you choose has to be very meaningful to you so that when you think about that goal, you get very excited about it. This is very important because if you are not very excited with the goal you trying to archive-- the result is you don't even want to start. One way for me to get excited about the goal is to think of the result and feeling of achievement-- I would feel like a Victoria secrets model after my 100 days of exercise.


4. Build anticipation -- zenhabits suggest that when you want to archive a goal, don't start immidistely, he said wait for it, even a week or month later, to set a date, make it excited and have more time for you to draw your strategy of archiving that goal. I think this might be a good idea-- I start my goals right away and then slowly writing strategy how I can archive my goals.

5.Post your goal-- make a few words of your goal (ex. read Blink for 30 mins )and post it on your wall, refrigerator, work, Ect. Make it within your sight so you can see it all the time. I wrote mine on a white board in my room, so I am able to see it when I wake up and go in my room. This help to constantly reminded me about my goal

6. Make it publicly-- talk to your friends, parents, and others about your goal.. This is because people don't like look bad in front of others. Making your goal public helps you to push yourself harder in archiving that goal because you don't want to look like a liar

7.Think about it daily-- this help to easier be committed to it. Get excited and posted on your wall help constantly thinking about that goal-- the more you think about it-- the more you are committed to it.

8. Get support-- archive goal alone is hard, you should get help from others.. I want to get help from my friends to go running or biking with me, go to yoga instructor and take real class.

9. Realize that motivation comes and then go-- if there are time you feel unmotivated, it is totally normal, just try to start yourself and be committed. No body can feel motivated all the time. So don't be too harsh on yourself.

10. Stick with it. Don't give up. If you don't feel motivated, just try to start again. I wasn't able to follow the steps that reach to my goals, but I didn't give it. I give myself an extension-- instead of 100 days would be to thanks giving, I subtracted to days I did not follow my goals and now my 100 days self motivation project has extended to Christmas.

11. Start small, really small. When you are tying to exercise, you don't have to work out 5 days a week starting out.. A two or three minutes starting would work. For me, everyday I woke up, I took out my yoga Matt, sometime I sat there for half an hour stretching and crunching and doing yoga, other times I just sat there and stretch for 5 minutes. I guess as long as you are start doing something, in a long run, it will become a habits. As long as you start-- it's all good.

12. Build on small success- as long as you are doing something small-- exercise for 5 mins in the morning -- I feel good about myself already. Everyday it gives me more confident and feel good about myself. Now I start running for half to an hour a day, twice a week. Feeling awesome

13. Think about the benefits, not difficult-- think about the positive. If you do this you get that. I always thinking about how exercise make me feel happier. I don't like to push myself too hard, when I go running, I walk slow when I feel tired. No need to push myself to hard. I just think about it as enjoying the nature outside and getting some fresh air -- ahhh

14. Call for help when you don't feel motivated. Surround yourself with people that serve the goals you are trying to archive-- need a running buddy?call your friends !

Aha ! Leadeership

Possible topics that I will be writing about leadership:
1. Understand ones self- Drucker
2. Life made out of habits - Stephen Convey
3. MOTIVATION 
3. Communicating - General Management Skills /Mind tool
4. Listening- General Magerial Skills /mind tool
5. Understanding the unconscious mind - Blink
6. Power- sources of power - General Managerial Skill
7. Three level of leadership - Clawson

>> I will relate all these topic in everyday life>> call it the Aha ! movement !
>> I will find the sources of material to back it up>>
>> I will try to keep the same Ethos -<< picturing>> or sounding consistent
>>write down what I <-thought, read, and head ->
>> Pay attention to my blog culture >> create culture>> charactoristic >. values>> Be consistant..consistant !!

>> Confident voice.. how to become confident?? do the home work. read read think think write write !!

Controversy

Leadership Controversies

The  controversies that I found in leadership topic are:
1. Abusive the power of leadership

I believe the abusive the power leadership is common controversy about leadership. Once one understand the power of leadership, it is really hard for one not to abuse it. Leadership can enable one to tell other what to do, influence other people in the way that you want them to be. therefore, so many people have abuse the influence that they have.There are a lot leader get to the successful position and abuse their power to corrupt, mislead, and controlling that are on the news. Another example that I had done a case study about is Tyco International former CEO, Dennis Kozlowski. He had tremendously successful lead Tyco International http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jun2002/tyco-j18.shtml and become one of the top and successful CEO in America, and yet he abuse his power as CEO a took a large amount of Tyco Company money and involved in fraudulent which were $400 million in lost company funds.


2. The question about whether leadership is moral or not.
The other controversy  that I found about leadership topic is whether leadership is ethical or not. This is because sometime when once understand the power of leadership, leader can start to use it to manipulate people to tell them what to do. This is because leadership is about understanding one needs and desires to motivate and influence a person. In my past leadership class that I took, there are three level of leaderships which consider to be the body, head, and heart. The first level is simply what other say or do, the things that are observable of ones' visible behaviors,  the body. The second level of leadership is conscious thoughts, how they think and their cognitive ability, the head. And lastly, the third level is a person set of values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations about the way the world is, the heart, and they said that if a leader are well trained and observe long enough, they can see through his followers through the mind to the heart. The three level of leadership by James G. Clawson stated that " leaders attempted to influences level two and three are unethical and invasion of privacy." Clawson gave an example of Skinnerian view B.F. Skinner, the famous psychologist. Skinner was able to conduct a research which said that we can managing human and animal to behave in a certain ways by reward them differently. He put the chicken in to a box with buttons for an experiment,  and when the chicken peaked on the button, Skinner rewarded it with corns, and he was able to trained the chicken to peak in a certain way that he wanted by reward them differently; therefore, Clawson concluded that leadership in level two and three are the invasion of ones' private life and it is not ethical to manipulate ones' behaviors. 

3. The dark side of leadership
 

Why Leadership?

Last semester, I was introduced to leadership class and fell in love with it. Learning about leadership has help me to develop the understanding of living and leading my life. Before I did not know what is the purpose of life. I feel that I have no direction and lost control. Every morning I wake up, I hate going to school and then go to work. The only thing I look forward is going out and have fun with my friends. Years pass by and I did not feel that I have accomplish anything.

But last semester was different for me. I actually love going to class and learn. I read before going to class, participate in class discussion, and school never feel so fun. And it was a Leadership class that I feel so inspired. I think Leadership is like a form of Art. It is so beautiful and powerful. It is beautiful because once understanding leadership, it can help a person to live life meaningfully. It is powerful once understand leadership traits and skills, that person can see the underlying forces to influence others, to tell them what to do and influence them in a good way.


At first I have many doubts about writing this topic because I think not that many people are going to read my blog; However, I think leadership is very important to life and I hope that by writing about leadership can help raise more awareness that can help impact on others.


The other reason why I decided to about leadership is because I want read, practice, and develop my leadership skills. see

Also I think leadership touches every thing in our daily life. From our habits of everything we do, interacting with ones an others, our actions and decisions in life to planning, AND ACHIEVING DREAMS..

Leadership is Influence. My other reason why I love leadership so much is because it can influence other people around you. Before I always blame life why can't it be this way or that way, now I understand leadership can help me to lead your own life. It help me to control the direction and the relationship where I want it to be with others. Also once I build leadership in myself, it can also help me to influence others that are important to me. To have a good relationship with my family and friends. Have you ever been in situation that you do not have good relationship with your parents,lovers, friends and coworkers? This is because maintain good relationship with others require good leadership skills. or it is the other ways around, maintain good relationship is very important to become a leader. this is because if no body like you, no one is goin g to listen to you. Leadership can influence other people to do what you say. In a positive way though because once you understand the art of leadership, you can manipulate others to do what you say, that is the abusive of leadership power to manipulate one's actions.

Links 2 Leaderhip !!

Top ten links about Leadership !


http://mindtools.com/

Mindtools.com is my most favorite website to learn about leadership. I have found this website from last semester when I have an interested in leadership, and ever since then, I have been visiting this website on my regularly basis. Mindtools.com provides over 600 skill sets to learn about leadership, team building, communication, and career skills.  In addition to those articles, mindtools.com also provide effective toolkits and self assessment relatively to those leadership topics, I found these toolkits and self assessment to be very easy to learn how to develop leadership skills. The assessments also tell me to see what levels I am at. I also found mindtools.com is even more powerful than any of the leadership textbooks that I have learned in school. The information in this website is very resourceful and the design of the resources to read is very easy to understand and learn from.


http://www.leadershipnow.com/index.html
Leadershipnow.com  is another website that I found very powerful to read about leadership. What I like leadershipnow.com is it emphasizes about the important of leadership and why ones need to develop leadership traits in them. What I found about this website also interesting  is it has different categories to read about leadership; an example is when I click on leadership quotes, I found a list of all leadership quotes only. I like reading quotes and learn from them. I think it is easier to learn from an interesting quote and remember it than reading a whole article or book about one topic. Leadershipnow.com also has the leadership books categories, when I clicked on it, a list of leadership books showed up. As my interested in leadership, I want to find powerful books to read about leadership; this website has a whole list of them . Lastly, if I want to read about leadership blog, I just need to click on blogging. I like leadershipnow.com that is very straight forward.  I can easily focus on what I feel like reading at the moment just by clicking on different categories.

http://www.learn-to-be-a-leader.com/index.html
learn-to-be-a-leader.com is a website teaching people to become a leader in a very simple and short sense of writing. The topics in this website are very straightforward, and the author also has facts and histories included in his writing, so I guess in a sense that you can figure out where and from whom are the topics came from. I like this website, it is kind of like an analytically about  leadership that the author has sources out the essential characteristics and  teaches how to become a leader.

http://www.forbes.com/leadership/
I read this website because I can find the most updated news about leaders that is happening with the current successful companies and the traits of leadership of those successful CEOs and other tips to become a better leader. I guess this has given me the application of leadership development and the result of being a leader( like those successful CEOs) 

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leader.html
When I search about leadership, this linked always shows up many times regard of different titles I searched for. nwlink.com is created by Donald Clark, and it has been on the internet over 15 years.  This website has a full coverage about leadership topics where it provides information and knowledge in performance, learning and training for leadership.

http://top7business.com/?Top-7-Leadership-Skills-for-Business-Success&id=3632
The top7business.com website is another resourceful place to read ab0ut leadership development. I like how all the title of the posts are starting with top 7. The design of this website is very easy to read and remember because all the posts are stated with top 7s, an example of the post top 7 leadership skills for business success. After finished reading this post I already remembered the 7 leadership skills to become successful are adaptability, self awareness, people skills, decisiveness, purposefulness, collaborate skills and executive and innovative. This is very simple, easy to memorize, and understand.

http://www.businessballs.com/index.htm
This website teaches ethical learning and development resource for people and organizations. It doesn't really mainly to focus on leadership but it has resources which teaches people to become successful in business. I really enjoy reading the posts in this website because it explains in detail about each topics, what it is, the important and benefit of each topics, and then the steps of how to archive them. I have the feeling that I will commit to read this site. It will become my influences on my writing about leadership.

http://www.emergingleader.com/article31.shtml
What brought me to this website is the 20 ways to become a leader posts. the topic does explain itself. this blog also has a linked to leadership blog which I found pretty old, back to 2006 posts. reading the blog maybe it will give me idea of maybe how to approach or write my blog about leadership. besides blog they also have categories talk about leadership.
 
http://life.halcode.com/archives/2008/04/13/the-7-attributes-of-leadership/
http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/
http://prinpink.wordpress.com/tag/leadership/
This website is created by Dan. after reading a few posts by Dan I was very inspired by how