Leadership Skills Development

How to acquire leadership skills? Can you get these skills by training?

Yes, you can develop your skills to be a leader. But before developing the skills, you need to have a change in your attitude.

Many people mistake leadership as a position of power. It is not. It is a seat of responsibility and unless you have the right attitude, the seat of responsibility which you occupied mistaking it to be a seat of power would soon turn into a hotbed from which you will be forced to jump out. Whether  you would jump out on your own or would be kicked out is the only issue.

The mistaken belief about the power of  leadership results from our observing the "leaders" in politics and a few other social organizations. We are liable to be carried away by the arrogance, nonchalance and high-handed behavior of people in powerful positions. What we often witness are not instances of leadership but of pseudo leadership. If we record our observations for a long period, we fill find that most of the "powerful" leaders end up getting humiliated and shunted out.

Almost all the dictators looked at leadership as power and hence failed to provide leadership. There is a huge difference between commanding people as a leader and commanding people by the use of power. When people obey a powerful person, they do not really obey the person but the power wielded by him. On the other hand, when people obey a leader, they do it because they accept his leadership and respect him both as a leader and as a person.


So, what kind of an attitude should a leader have? We can list several attributes of good leadership but I will list "concern for his people" as the foremost. a leader who cares for the people whom he leads is the most powerful, most respected and most effective leader. What more, his task of leading the people becomes so easy and enjoyable.