How To Become A Leader (2)
HAVING people follow you requires that you communicate the destination where you are leading them. Stories are the best way to impart such knowledge to those you are serving. People won’t follow you unless they can relate to you and stories create such a relationship.
Find out what troubles your people and then provide the solution through telling a story about how such a problem has been solved before.
Show your team you care in the following ways: Eat lunch with them. Play games with them; perhaps join the favourite soccer fans club of your team. Send them messages when they are sick. Be there for their mother’s funeral. Congratulate them whenever a new child is born to them. In these small ways, you can show the people you care. When you care about people, they shower care and respect in your direction.
However, be clear what you stand for, in terms of your ideology. The whole act of following someone starts from what the leader stands for. If you stand for one ideology, but your followers stand for something different, they are not likely to continue following you. To gain firm following, let people know you for an ideology, then get to work, as true leadership is about ditching the prison of hierarchy. People follow you when you show them that you are just like them. Which is why you never ask someone to do what you cannot do by yourself. Spend a day in the life of your team. It will show you their challenges and allow you to be compassionate when things go wrong. If all you do is preach and never participate in any hard tasks or it has been years since you did odd jobs with them, people won’t follow you.
Show the people you don’t believe in hierarchy by doing what they do. As a leader, you are not better than your followers. What they do, you do, don’t be afraid of asking for help. Just because you are the leader doesn’t mean you have all the answers. Asking for help doesn’t make you any less a leader either.
Leaders realise they cannot succeed without the support of people who have the skills they are lacking. Leadership is a team sport; ask for help and delegate tasks thoughtfully.
Some leaders make the mistake of doing everything and been everywhere, which leads to overwhelm and burnout. Delegating is part of leadership. It thoughtfully means if a member has a goal to learn negotiation, delegate him for your next negotiation or let him join you. Being thoughtful like this builds unwavering loyalty to the leader. Praise and harsh conversations go hand in hand. Nobody can be truly good at everything, no matter his education. The best learning is done under pressure. People lose faith in people who promise the world and don’t deliver anything tangible.
As a leader, delivery comes from focus. Focus is built from experience through narrowing your achievement to one or two goals. As a leader, you would know those who love you and those who hate you. It isn’t your job to have everyone love you, but it is your job to have people respect you, regardless of they disagreeing with what you stand for.
Even then, some people would just hate you because their own life sucks and hating you fills the void in them that you could never understand. You would learn an awful lot from those who hate you through loving everybody, not just the people who agree with you.