For someone who is taking the reins of a leadership role for the first time, there can be a lot of uncertainty, questions and doubts. What really makes a good leader? Are you set up to be a good leader? What is the correct management style for you? These are topics and headlines that have been widely debated and pondered. The question behind these that everyone truly wants to know is: How do I succeed as a leader?
There is no shortage of articles and books you can find on the topic of leadership. A simple internet search will bring you an endless string of pages for your consumption — pages that are ready to tell you who you are and what it takes to accomplish the success for which you are searching. If you review just the first page of results, you’ll likely notice that none of them seem to agree. You might see “the six types of leaders,” “the eight types of leaders,” “the 10 types of leaders” and more. If no one can come to a consensus on simply how many different leadership styles there are, how do you figure out where you fit?
This is the easiest answer to discover. Only you can define the type of leader you are. Only you can pave the way toward success or failure. There is nothing wrong with doing research to get advice and find ideas or answers you might not have thought of on your own. But as you are sorting through all the available literature, remember that to be an effective leader, there is no checklist. You can’t focus on a specific description and live by how an article, a book or even a respected mentor has bullet-pointed what it exactly means. I believe concrete titles and definitions can bring you far more trouble than success.
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