You Are A Leader

You Are A Leader, But Do You Have Leadership Skills

By Joel Elveson – Independent Executive Recruiter – Headhunter

“Take me to your leader!” “So and so is a leader in the clubhouse.” “The Leader of The Pack (The Shangri –Las).” “He was one of the last of the truly great leaders.” “He led this city brilliantly through its worst time in history.” “We will never have another leader quite like him in the White House again.”

Leaders. Our history is rich with stories of great leaders who inspired or through the power of their charisma, or oratory skills convinced people this person is somebody who we should follow. Somebody who knows how to do things better than we do so let him lead.

The problem with the above is that great leaders in many cases lack leadership skills. A take charge personality coupled with the ability to make decisions under difficult circumstances can qualify a person as a leader. Despite that, lets go back to the first sentence in the paragraph where I point out that in order to be a true leader you have to have leadership skills.

Like practically any other skill, leadership skills can be learned. While there is nothing wrong with “on the job training,” developing leadership skills must be taught to you in one manner or another. Furthermore, this type of skill must be taught by somebody who has the know how via experience in how to teach leadership skills.

This process is called Leadership Learning which is taught in conjunction with self-improvement, strategic management, strategic planning, and strategic planning strategy. If you closely examine the aforementioned, you will be left to conclude that without these key components you cannot be an effective leader.

What about empathy, vision, soft skills, people skills, communication skills, relationship building skills and so on. These also fall under the genre of leadership skills. Truly great leaders not only possesses these skills but they incorporate them into their leadership style. This gives them additional credentials that earn them the right to sit on the leadership throne.

To throw a monkey wrench into my theories mentioned above, let me throw out a hypothetical question for you to ponder and respond to. In the absence of the above, can a leader still effectively lead? The answer I will present is yes, but with an asterisk and a footnote. In other words, you can still be an effective leader, but what you will have accomplished, in terms of how you positively impacted others, will be limited.

After all isn’t a core value of leadership to empower others to reach a greater potential than they probably would have had they not been under your “charge.” We have witnessed throughout history legendary leaders who were football coaches, presidents, foreign leaders who as meteorically as they ascended into leadership they also ultimately crashed and burned as they lacked true leadership skills, nor did they try to professionally acquire them.

To recap, we have to an extent clarified the definition of leader along with what goes into the making of a “great leader.” We have sketched out the necessary skill sets a leader must have without which his shallowness will show through all but eradicating his past accomplishments along with those who became so disillusioned that their belief or loyalty to this person is gone.

I have been very fortunate to meet a man whom I have watched consistently turn out truly skilled leaders in addition to shaping the destructive or negative habits his “students” have had and successfully made them into a “complete product.”

That man is Phil Lower. Under the banner of Paladin, Phil masterfully transforms Performance Management by fusing contemporary coaching methodologies and evolving learning systems. Intertwined with all of this are eLearning courses in Communications & Leadership.

Phil also teaches Active Leadership skills with Core Communication Packages. Phil’s unrivaled success is due to his exhaustive research into what works and what did not work molding each into one cohesive unit. While leadership and brand marketing are not synonymous with each other, Phil Lower clearly demonstrates how they are permanently intertwined.

Aside from being a great friend and mentor, Phil has used his unique coaching methods to build me up on those days when I felt I did not “have it” anymore. Somebody that can transform you from being forlorn to invigorated with a just a simple down to earth conversation is clearly somebody that demonstrates leadership along with leadership skills.

While many leaders are supposedly “born” it is people like Phil Lower who help put all the necessary pieces of the puzzle together to form a complete product. By the way, Phil is more than adept in helping you with your business in addition to your career.

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Joel Elveson is an Independent Executive Recruiter – Headhunter with Independent Executive Recruiting By Joel, which is a firm, Joel started under the guise there is a more “user friendly” way to go about the staffing & recruiting process.

As a “veteran” of the insurance & mortgage industries Joel always strove to find the best solutions for his clients while providing his employers with “value added” service.

From those vantage points, Joel became keenly aware of what separated a bad employee from a good employee. In addition to the above, Joel learned the intricacies of each business and what made each “tick.”

Joel Elveson took his love of insurance, mortgage banking and lending and translated it into a more meaningful way to do business.

Joel Elveson
Independent Executive Recruiter – HH Headhunter
Independent Executive Recruiting By Joel
(347) 713-1684-Main
(718) 787-8165-Mobile
(347) 374-4054-Fax
E-mail: Jelveson@gmail.com
Website: http://www.wix.com/billions1/fasthire
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelelveson

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