Who is a leader and what are the qualities of a leader can be read anywhere. Everybody knows that Leader is the person who leads while others follow. When people follow an individual, they are accepting the person’s ideas; they are convinced with, people do whatever a leader wants them to do, in this situation that individual whom the people are following is a Leader. A leader can be a musician, a sports person, a celebrity, a spiritual preacher, freedom fighter, or a politician. Anybody who leads inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals; motivates others to pursue actions, focus thinking, and shape decisions for the greater good of the organization is a leader. Leadership is an incessant trip of building teams and communicating so that everyone works together. Teams that have this synergy tend to be the ones on top and most victorious.
Importance of Leadership for an Entrepreneur
Leadership is important because an entrepreneur has to lead a team and it is the most important quality that an entrepreneur must have. On the other hand, the team, staff and associates who are working for the entrepreneur, mostly are followers. The reason is that in most cases we find that, people do not want to lead, but they want to work under a leader. Why people don’t want to become leaders? In most cases the reason is, they think that if they become leader they will have to do extra work. They’ll have to make strategies, talk to many people, work with many and different type of people, have to convince people and from time to time they will have to motivate others. Rather than doing all these things they decide to work under a leader where life is easy. This is an opportunity for the entrepreneurs. The human psychology is that they want to work with a good leader. So they join a party, a club or a group. The intention of most of the people is that they want to live an easy and comfortable life and they don’t want to make it complex because a leader has to face and overcome many troubles, challenges and difficulties. The leader may be famous for his qualities, but people do not want to face those challenges and difficulties in life. The entrepreneur should take advantage of this aspect of human psychology that every individual does not want to become leader rather they want to work under a dynamic leadership. So if people are ready to work under leader, then why not become a leader and make the team at ease and make them do the things as per our wish. If we are leading a group or team, then the team will be reliant on us.
Developing Leadership Qualities
Lead the world and it’s yours! It is important to be a leader and also very essential for the success of the business that the entrepreneur should be a leader and the people should accept them or their ideas. Now the question arises how the entrepreneur can become a leader? To become a leader we will have to understand that, who can become a leader? What are the qualities that make a person lead a group or a team? We can read in books about the different leadership qualities, for example good communication skills, punctuality, dynamic personality, management skills, strong execution, adequate knowledge or a talent. But leadership qualities are quite different from the above mentioned qualities. Nobody is born with all of the above mentioned qualities. Nobody is perfect and does not possess all the above mentioned qualities but that does not mean that they cannot become a leader. We have different types of people in our team some are brilliant, some are excellent, some are poor and some are average. A person can become a good leader without possessing all leadership qualities. To become a leader what plays a major role is to understand human psychology. Why will people accept a person as a leader even if we the person doesn’t have all leadership qualities? In this situation one has to identify one factor or quality to lead the team or a group of people. How we can do that? To explain and to understand it better let us see an example or a situation.
In a team of 10 people how many have the leadership qualities, sometimes one and at times not even one. So, if all the leadership qualities are not there in that member that means the leader is not there and the team will not work properly. Suppose there is requirement of a team leader for a team of 10 members. “X” person is already a team leader with multiple skills and is handling a team. Obviously the team would select “X” who has the qualities which are generally termed as leadership qualities. They will want “X” to be a team leader and the team members will be comfortable to work with “X”. On the other hand in the same group of 10 people we have an individual “Y” who does not have the leadership qualities, who stands nowhere in front of the other nine people in terms of leadership qualities, no one will accept “Y” as team leader. The team believes that “Y” cannot lead the team and is not a good manager. “Y” does not have effective communication skills, is less experienced and the education qualification is also less than other members of the team. Will the team select “Y” as a team leader? Obviously not, they will refuse to elect and no one in the team will accept “Y” as a team leader. It will be a very embarrassing situation for “Y”.
Now on the other hand at this situation if the entrepreneur, the Big Boss of the organization, nominates “Y” who has never been a Group Leader and also announces that “Y” is going to work as a representative of the Boss and “Y” would execute the things according to the directions given by the boss and all decisions, planning and control will be in the hands of the boss. But the boss will support “Y” from the back end and it will be “Y” at the front end leading the group on behalf of the boss. Now when the entrepreneur will ask the team to choose between “X” and “Y”, people will have now more confidence over “Y” and team members will select “Y” as their Team Leader. They know that “X” does have all the leadership skills but “Y” as is directly acting on behalf of their boss and they know that the boss is there and “Y” is just a representative, so they will have more trust on “Y”. The team will accept the entrepreneur’s decision. So a person with no leadership qualities and no experience becomes a leader of the team with one factor and that is direct support of the big boss at back end.
The idea of giving this example is that there aren’t multiple factors which can make a leader. A person has to identify only one factor and they don’t have to run after many factors. There is only one factor that will make a leader and in the above given example it was the delegation of authority and support that made “Y” a leader in the group.
Even in politics, candidates take support of a political party because they know that if they contest election independently, though they have better qualities then the other candidate who is contesting election under the banner of a party, there is very less chances of winning the election. So they take the support of a political party, this way, there is a big organization supporting them. When a bigger party is involved and supporting the candidate, people know that they have hold in government so they can get the work done and whenever anyone requires support they will get it. Irrespective of the candidate’s qualities and qualifications people vote for him because of the party that is supporting the candidate. So the factor in is this situation still remains the same and that is the party.
If we take example of cricketers or musicians people are crazy about them and they have a big fan following although in their personal life it has been found that many are not highly educated or were not that intelligent in their schools. At times it has been found that they are not even good managers, if we appoint them in any organization and ask them to handle the budget they will not be able to do it. But they have one good quality and that is they can play cricket or they can sing well, they are masters of their field. If we talk about the spiritual leaders they have many followers only because of one reason that they understand the need and problem of the people. They also deal with only one aspect that is problem of human beings. Every person has problems in life and when the spiritual leaders talk about problem people listen to them. When the person becomes spiritual leader and talks about management, finance or even music, people will accept it because he is a leader for them. It is not very difficult for an individual to become a leader, they need to identify one aspect and work on it. It is the individual who can identify that aspect or factor by doing a self analysis and work on that factor that will make him a leader.
With reference to these examples, the entrepreneur who is a leader of the organization needs to identify one factor that entire team should have trust and faith. The most important thing in leadership is when we become a leader people will trust us and will have faith and confidence in us. An entrepreneur or a leader should always keep this thing in mind that they can become a successful entrepreneur or leader only when their followers, staff or employees have trust, faith and confidence in them. They should never do things that will make people lose confidence in them. People have faith that whenever there is a problem or a complex situation our leader will sort it out and rescue us. They will provide better solution and eliminate the problem or the error for the smooth functioning, expansion, growth and development. Our leader is not only concerned about their growth but also concerned about the growth of their employees and the organization. They pay importance to growth because they know if their team grows, the organization will grow and in turn they will also grow. It has been observed that there are many successful entrepreneurs who are not that well educated like MBAs. They hardly posses the leadership qualities or any managerial skills but still they are successful entrepreneurs. The question is how a person without proper knowledge of finance, marketing, HR, sales and other technical concepts that are required to run a business is running a successful business. It is because people have trust and confidence in him, not because of multiple factors or skills but because of the funds that they have. If entrepreneur have sufficient funds people will develop confidence in them and believe that the company can handle itself in difficult times and they can depend on that particular individual or organization.
Similarly, the customers also become followers and we can lead our customers. Leadership is not only to lead our team but also to lead the market and the customers. Of the many features in our brand or product we can identify one and with that we can lead the market. To summarize in one line, any person even if they does not possess multiple qualities can become a leader if they possess the ability to recognize and nurture one good quality in themselves