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I just read an article from Forbes.com which discusses the new Center for Leadership at Dartmouth’s business school. The idea is that leadership can be taught and that an important component of leadership is knowing yourself. If you don’t know yourself, how will you know your strengths and weaknesses? Furthermore, how will you know your strengths and weaknesses in a crisis situation? While I think this is important, it raises a lot of questions in my mind.

One question is, can leadership be defined? Some people not only say yes, but that leadership can be learned as well (see ‘Can Leadership be Learned?‘ ).  In my view, truly great leaders are born with a set of special characteristics which are given the right combination of environment and mahatma-gandhi-indian-herocircumstance to allows these skills to come to fruition. Great leaders require catalysts to propel them to greatness. Think of any great leader like Churchill, Lincoln, Napoleon or Gandhi and what comes to mind is always the enormous struggles they faced. However, this is not to say that great leaders don’t learn how to lead through experience. They have the seeds of leadership within them, but they require life experience to develop those skills.

What would have happened if Gandhi had been born in Ohio in the 1960′s? This is not to slag Ohio or the 60′s but simply my question is how would have Gandhi lived his life had he been born in a quiet place at a quiet time? Would he still have become a great leader? Perhaps yes and perhaps no, but what is likely is that he would have been some type of leader. Maybe we would have never have heard of him, but he would surely be some type of community or religious leader. The point is that

So what are these special characteristics that great leaders share? Well if you study the history of these men and women you see a few commonalities;

1. A compelling vision – They all have an idea of the type of business, country, army etc. that they want to create. Their vision is something which motivates people to follow them so that they can become a part of making the vision a reality.

2. Communication - What good is having a compelling vision if you can’t explain it to people? Great leaders speak to their followers and get them to understand what’s needed of them.

3. Steadfastness – In times of crisis people seek out stability and meaning. Leaders tend to provide people with certainty that there will be a better tomorrow and that they can trust them to guide them there. When the world is crumbling around them, leaders can remain calm and focused on what they need to do.

4. Fairness – To lead people they must believe that the world you want to create is fair. Fairness simply means that your behavior is in accord with your vision. Being a hypocrite will cause your followers to doubt your sincerity and without followers you’re not a leader.

5. Courage – Leaders don’t let fear rule them, they conquer their fears.

6. Self-knowledge – This is taking a page out of the Forbes article I referenced at the beginning of this article. A leader knows what he is all about, he knows his strengths, weaknesses, what he lives for and what he would die for.

Another question is can ANYONE develop leadership skills? I think the answer is definitely yes. All of us are leaders and followers at something at various points in our life. Leadership is like any other skill or talent; it must be worked on to develop. We develop our skills through practice and we gain opportunities to practice by stepping to new challenges.

Leadership is a skill which will definitely gain you an advantage in group projects and in the working world. If you are still wondering how you can develop your leadership skills well one simple answer is to volunteer as a project coordinator for your group project. Another way to gain practice is to volunteer for your favorite committees, clubs or charities. Try organizing meetings or events for these groups. Another thing you can do is volunteer for Big Brothers/ Big Sisters, where you would be helping a youngster out from time to time by being their ‘leader’ so to speak.

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