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Leadership Development and The 5 C's
There are five qualities that leaders should posses, and they are all present in varying degrees at the time a child starts to play with others. As the child grows, these characteristics start to become noticable and help lead him or her to their ultimate leadership roles. These five elements are conviction, creativity, compassion, courage, and confidence.
1. Courage
Very early in leadership development is the courage to stand up for what you believe in. A leader has a passion—and can embrace the sympathy of others to follow that passion. Of course, leaders are not all perfect people—there are many leaders (i.e. Charles Manson) who are very bad people, but they were fantastic leaders. There are also very effective leaders in every war—they are not liked or celebrated, but they had the courage to fight for their beliefs.
2. Conviction or Charisma
Leadership development also includes the ability to charm a crowd, one person at a time. Whether campaigning for human rights, same sex marriages, or free speech, an effective leader knows how to charge the audience. Many religious leaders exercise leadership development skills through song and verse to incite the audience to their cause.
3. Confidence
A true leader instinctively knows how to lead. Of course, this is a leadership development quality that must be practiced, attempted, and refined throughout someone’s life. However, knowing they can lead their team to victory or knowing they can organize and meet the monetary goal for the charity sale is the sign on a true leader. In addition, if there is an argument over who should be leader, a good leader knows to step back; it is sometimes through the perception of others that they will gain ultimate leadership.
4. Compassion
Compassionate leadership development is necessary in today’s workforce. Gone are the days where employees work for decades at the same company, regardless of the conditions. Today, employers deal with single parents, expensive childcare, sick children, no insurance, and poverty level conditions. A leader is the workforce who cannot or does not show compassion toward employees and their dependents will soon find themselves a leader of none.
5. Creativity
Leadership development involves a great deal of creativity. A true leader is not afraid to try to new things. The lead car sales representative may not be the one who sells the most cars; he may be the one that sells only two very expensive cars. There is something to be gleaned from that analogy. He or she knows how to use the available energy.
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