by Mario Luis Tavares Ferreira

Created on: March 17, 2009   Last Updated: April 24, 2009

Leadership is given not taken.

Another common sentence is that you are born a leader, that it is a natural gift. In some aspects it is. But, there are some attitudes that can be acquired to change that perception.

A leader is an individual with charisma. He has a natural empathy with people and can convince them to do what he wants. He has a global vision of situations and quick answers to the problems. He keeps himself cool when the world is exploding around him. He remembers names and profiles of anyone around him. He is a multi-task professional. He can control different areas of business and even different businesses. He is a natural negotiator, internally and externally, on business environment. He manages people naturally. He evaluates, knows how to choose and attracts the best professionals to work with him. He is a visionary. He is a reference to the novice and also to the professional savvy, and so on.

Wow! Seems an endless list to accomplish!

First of all, you should make a self-evaluation to know if you want or not to be a leader and have more responsibilities and to dedicate energy to achieve that goal.

It is not an easy path, often shifting from success to failure and from failure to success very quickly, and many times it is a lonely path.

Be careful with promises like "10 step to become a leader". There is no magic, or recipe or formula to transform you into a leader. To be recognized as one it takes a long path and a natural evolution.

Below you can find some suggestions to prepare your journey:

To lead you need to have followers, though first thing is to know how to deal with people. Improve your people management skills, have at least three different references or methodologies and techniques to achieve it. Read some books and take some courses, short-time courses with highly recommended or recognized professionals, not the first one that you discover on the web. People management is easy to teach, difficult to practice. You will be dealing with feelings, empathy, motivation, egos, power disputes, accommodations, fears of changes, and so on. Nowadays, also, cultural aspects are fundamental, we live in a globalized economy and connected world, and awareness of different cultures is essential.

You need to know how to make presentations and to speak in public. Related to speech and presentation is also the ability to conduct, control and start and finish productive meetings.

Negotiation is another basic skill. You negotiate internally in your organisation

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