a leader with passion
Leadership is not a simple skill that anyone can easily claim having or easily obtain from reading books. However, it exists deep inside everyone and evolves through different experiences.
I've been exposed to different experiences where my leadership skills had to take over. When I used to play soccer with my friends and school and since I was good at it, I've been always chosen to be the leader. It was fun but hard. Assigning defense and attack players, each one based on what he is good at, managing the team within the field. It wasn't an easy task but, since I had the passion for the thing I was doing, which was soccer, I was doing my best to direct my team, inspire and motivate them to win as one whole unit.
We didn't use to win all the time, which was normal. It was hard to me to accept failure but I had to, otherwise, I would lose my team trust and confidence. Hence, I learned to stay strong in hard times and learn from my mistakes.
On the academic side, I've been chosen as a team leader on several projects in university. I had to deal with different kinds of students the active and the lazy one. This time I had to choose different approaches to get the whole team together to move forward.
I had to be calm and relaxed as not to stress the active and at the same time observing the lazy ones and motivating them. I had to show them my passion for what we're doing by working very hard up too late hours at night. Following up their work regularly and discussing their simplest opinion with the whole team. This made the lazy ones feel responsible by the time. Evaluating their mistakes in a welcomed was very effective as it encourages the member to work without fear. giving out all that he got, not afraid to be criticized or judged.
I shared ideas with the lazy students before the nerds to show them that they are as important as other students. Implement their ideas sometimes with a little effort of me to make it happen. sometimes I don't, and explain the reason for that and ask for a reevaluation. the most effective leadership skill I have is my own failure stories and experience. when you tell someone how exactly can you relate to what he is feeling. being experienced that situation before, and how you overcame it, is a magical way to awaken the magic within them.
At the same time, it's a motivation for me to keep moving and overcoming my hard times and obstacles to inspire others.
In a nutshell, a lot of characteristics can identify a good leadership, it's not about the characteristic itself but how you use it. Leadership can sometimes be easy to describe but hard to implement if passion doesn't exist.
