Becoming a leader is pretty easy. It just requires that you get one person to follow you. Understand that it doesn’t make you a good leader. But it does make you a leader. If you want to be a good leader, you will need a lot more than people willing to follow you. People often choose to follow bad leaders to their doom. There are ways for you to earn respect as a leader and still not be a particularly good leader. It takes more than that. and like anything else, becoming a good leader requires practice in a number of disciplines.
Practice is not the same as knowledge. You can have knowledge of how to fly an airplane. But if you have no practical experience doing it many times, you are not the right person to make an unassisted emergency landing. Before you can get that real life experience, you have to practice a lot. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice! It is often said of people that they are born leaders. That is almost never true. They might be born with leadership qualities. But for them to be truly useful, those skills have to be practised just as faithfully as a violin. Here are just a few of those leadership qualities that will be worthless without practice, and a lot of it:
Taking tests
Some believe that life is a constant test. There is some truth in that. We are often called to step up and learn new things. As you grow through your career, you have to continue to learn. You have to be able to face each new test that comes your way so that you can master new skills.
One path to community and civic leadership is becoming an attorney. You are not going to do that without passing your LSAT. And you are unlikely to do that on the first try without having access to LSAT practice questions. As it happens, practice questions are among the oldest forms of test prep. To do well at taking tests, you have to be familiar with common testing formats, the types of questions asked, and time limits that force you to perform under pressure. As a leader, you have to perform under pressure all the time. You will have to do so in formats that are outside of your comfort zone. Sometimes, you have to learn new things quickly and implement them well. Practising your test-taking skills ultimately makes you a better leader in whatever field you operate.
Public speaking
As a leader, you can’t afford to have a fear of public speaking. Some say that the number one job of the president is to speak to the nation in times of crisis to bring a sense of calm and hope. You definitely want a leader who makes the right decisions. But those decisions will not be entirely effective if the people remain confused and uncertain.
Leaders of industry also have to be able to communicate their vision. The best way to get people to follow your lead is to communicate your vision in a way that it becomes their vision. If you want to get venture capitalists to fund your next project, you have to deliver your vision through speech. There is no magic to public speaking. You can study all the great books and all the great speeches. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to practice.
Listening
Believe it or not, productive listening is a skill that has to be cultivated over time. Very few people are good listeners at first. It takes practice. Leaders have to stop and listen to things they don’t want to hear. Some things they hear might be painful. They have to listen to employees and customers speaking truth to power. They have to listen actively, and in a way that doesn’t attempt to intimidate or shut down feedback. A leader who does not learn to listen is doomed to fail. There is no substitute for productive listening. And there is no way to achieve it without lots of practice.
Almost no one is born a good leader. If you have some of the natural qualities of leadership, practice test-taking, public speaking, and productive listening.