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Are you born a leader, or do you become the leader?
When you are in charge of a project, it requires courage and patience. If you give orders without any clear objective or do not know how to manage your team's potential, your leadership will not bear fruit.
Many may be discouraged by making mistakes when they are in charge or feeling like it is something they must be born with, but we believe that leadership is a skill that you can improve through constant practice.
That is why today, we want to give you ten facts that you should know as a potential leader that you are.
Lead Yourself
Both Taoists and Stoics, ancient philosophies that come from Rome and Asia, respectively, believe in the mindset that there are things you can control (MYSELF) and things you cannot control (EVERYTHING ELSE).
In this way, it makes sense that if you can't lead yourself, you probably can't lead a team.
For this reason, good leadership must begin with ourselves; in this way, knowing ourselves profoundly and knowing how to react to the outside world, the task of leading will be somewhat easier.
Source: Youtube
Self Awareness
Life is a fantastic gift, and therefore it is crucial to make the most of it. Therefore, getting to know each other is something we must do to unleash all our hidden potential.
In this way, you must know your successes and your disadvantages, so you can enhance your good part (YANG) and work on your shadows or negative aspects to improve them (YING).
Once you know your potential, you know what situations you can face more efficiently, and you can also see the value of your work team to help you enhance aspects that you do not handle correctly.
Remember that learning from others is essential to improve as a leader.
In the same way, you can do the exercise of taking examples to follow about your previous leaders. This exercise is known as the "Self Character."
For example: Visualize that boss you admired so much. What characteristics did you like about him? How can you develop them in your leadership?
Now do the same exercise with the worst boss you've ever had: What didn't you like about him? Do you have any of these characteristics in your personality? What could you have done better?
Source: Youtube
Self Reflection
"The happiness of life depends on the quality of your thoughts." - Marcus Aurelius
Rome is a place full of great emperors and philosophers who marked the history of the leaders. Among these, Marcus Aurelius' was a great politics who managed to stand out for his excellent work.
One of Marcos's exercises was to visualize the challenges that he had overcome and those he would have to face during the new day; this will only take 5 minutes to program in the day or night.
To do the exercise, ask yourself: what are the challenges I am about to face ?, how did my leadership go last day ?, ¿how I like to be a leader ?.
Once you have answered all these questions, you are ready to face the day with greater proactivity.
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Self Regulation
Being in charge of any project is stressful; we know it. However, as an excellent superior, you have to know how to react to any setback you have.
For example, Yesterday John told you that he had the report ready, he must deliver this report in two days. The next day John doesn't have the report. How are you going to react?
Source: Pixabay/ Mohhamed-Hassam
Before responding with anger, it is good to quantify how serious it is from 1 to 10. If the fault is severe, it is essential to show character and apply a call for attention.
Now, if John still has one day left to deliver, it may be that the severity of this fault is a five or a four at most. Take a deep breath, and safely tell John that he must finish the report today, without fail. Don't explode and create unnecessary conflict.
Of course, learn not to flee the conflict when necessary. A good leader must know when to put the feet down.
You must have an ego, but don't be an egomaniac.
Self-confidence is an aspect that all human beings like. We all want to be that woman or man in a suit who attracts everyone's gaze and successful in all their actions.
Our ancestors and current Society worship the hero or heroine archetype who faces their dreams, fights to the end, and comes out victorious.
For this reason, if you want to be a leader, it is essential that you believe in yourself and that what you want to achieve is the best option for the entire project.
Still, you can't let the ego get to your head because pride and self-centeredness can cloud your vision and cause things to derail to the wrong place when you get to this point.
Power corrupts, and even if your long-term vision is right, not knowing how to manage your authority wisely will damage things.
Remember that it is not about you. It is about the organization that brings us to the next point.
It is not about you.
"A good leader can inspire people to have confidence in the leader." - Eleanor Roosevelt 
Source: Pixabay/ Deanwinchester
Okay, you have the power; however, there is no power worthwhile if you do not know how to harness your team's potential.
Leadership is not about you; it is about inspiring people to reach that common goal.
If you think that to be a leader, you must carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. At some point, you will collapse, and the whole world will crash against the ground.
If you understand what it is to be a good leader, you know that if you inspire your work team to carry the world as a team, the weight will get lighter and lighter.
Don't try to change everyone else. Change yourself.
"The enemy is within the gates. It is with our luxury, our folly, our criminality that we must contend". - Cicero
You cannot change people's attitude towards yourself; human beings do not have a remote control that allows you to mould them as you like.
In another aspect, and returning to Taoism's philosophy, the only thing we can change is our reaction to the environment, and obviously, to ourselves.
Therefore, if we want to change our environment, it is essential to evaluate ourselves and change our environment, which hinders our leadership.
The environment in which we operate is a reflection of our thinking and behaviour.
Therefore, you must ask yourself: What environment are you creating in your mind?
"I couldn't change others until I change myself." - Nelson Mandela
Source: Pixabay/ Ben Kerckx
Be a problem solver
The important thing is not to magnify the problem, worship the problem, and give the problem power. Instead of this negative attitude, it is best to find a solution.
Our reality is full of conflicts, and before giving up and throwing in the towel, the right thing to do is learn the proper way to prevent and manage these inconveniences.
That is why the first step is to define the problem and then find possible solutions to it.
Another important aspect is to promote a good working relationship between the entire team, ensuring that there are no conflicts between the different sectors so that there is harmony within the workplace.
Playing who is to blame will only make you have a part of your team discouraged and even sorry. Therefore, in times of complication, it is better to provide support so that everything is solved.
Source: Youtube
Find a coach or mentor.
It is good to have an alternate vision of everything that is happening. Sometimes, as leaders, we can have our minds in many places, which does not allow us to think clearly.
Just like when you go to a gym and the coach helps you improve your physique, a coach is the right person to help you overcome these character or emotion management problems you need when managing your company.
A coach will help you learn more about yourself, but it will also allow you to have a trusted person exchange ideas that can become your company's new goals.
Source: Youtube
Know when to move on
Visualize yourself in this situation: You started as an intern. Your significant effort and all your mistakes made you a stronger person, sure of yourself. You reached the top as a leader, and you achieved all your professional goals. Now what?.
Achieving our professional goals brings us a very pleasant personal gratification. Even so, when everything is perfect and nothing inspires you to continue evolving, it may be a good idea to pass the torch to a next-generation and you to undertake a new leadership project.
A famous example is the case of Jeff Bezos. He, after becoming the world's most millionaire man and experiencing multimillion-dollar earnings during the pandemic, today plans to retire from his position as CEO of Amazon to dedicate himself to other projects.
Is this a mistake? We do not believe that this is the case, since new generations or leaders can make the company evolve more, and if from a personal perspective you already feel satisfied with your work, it is healthy to move on with your life.
Great leaders are made through consistent effort and your ability to stay positive even through the darkest moments of your career.
In our blog, we keep bringing you articles of interest to inspire you and help you be the entrepreneur you want to be.
Visualize yourself and keep working hard. You will achieve your goals!
See you in a future article, future leaders!
CodeDesign is a performance digital marketing(internet advertising agency) and Amazon agency. We help clients worldwide in creating a digital marketing strategy and optimizing how they use digital marketing channels. For Amazon marketing, we help vendors and sellers in Amazon listing optimization and creating an Amazon marketing strategy.
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