The Qualities of Skillful Leadership by Jim Rohn
If you
want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person
of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts,
skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. I
call leadership the great challenge of life.
What’s important in
leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves
until they become effective. Here are some specifics:
Learn to be strong
but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable
leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength.
It’s not even a good substitute.
Learn to be kind but not weak. We must
not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain
type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be
kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough
to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
Learn to be bold but not
a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got
to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be willing to take the first
arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of
trouble.
You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can’t get
to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility.
Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An
awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something
unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the
distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the
stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an
affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.
Be proud but not
arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition.
It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the
key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I
believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It’s when you
don’t know that you don’t know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If
someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant
and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.
Develop humor without folly.
That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it’s okay to be
witty, but not silly. It’s okay to be fun, but not foolish.
Lastly, deal
in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it
is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I’d like to think it’s
unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It’s fascinating. And I’ve found that
the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But
the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about
everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.
