The 3 L’s To Become A Leader

Leadership is not for everyone. It takes a combination of hard work, training, learning, commitment, attitude, integrity and vision to become a truly great and effective leader. However, if we needed to sum up the prerequisites for true leadership succinctly, it would come down to the 3 L’s.

The 3 L’s To Become A Leader
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Richard_Brody]Richard Brody

Leadership is not for everyone. It takes a combination of hard work, training, learning, commitment, attitude, integrity and vision to become a truly great and effective leader. However, if we needed to sum up the prerequisites for true leadership succinctly, it would come down to the 3 L’s. True leaders must first learn, then listen, and then actually lead.

1. Leadership all begins with professional and comprehensive training. When this is both done correctly, and the individual also pays attention and takes to heart the essential concepts that he is taught, the learning process begins. The difference between training and learning, therefore, is that while training may be either passive or active, true learning is both active and continuous. This requires the individual being trained to adopt a welcoming attitude and a desire to become better, as well as admitting that no one knows it all, and each of us can always improve. As a professional trainer for well over three decades, I have witnessed my share of both the receptive learner, as well as the ones that go to training solely because either they have to (it’s mandated), they falsely believe that training alone will magically teach them to be great leaders, or they take the training in order to be politically correct and be able to say that they were trained. Obviously, the greatest leaders are those that use what is taught in the training, and learn how to be better leaders. This is further complicated by the fact that the majority of organizations do not conduct professionally designed and/ or coordinated/ led leadership training, so the quality of the training is often, at best, suspect.

2. Great leaders must hone their listening skills, and become truly effective listeners. There is a major difference between passive hearing, listening and effective listening. The effective listener always learns the most accurate information about the needs and wants of those around him, as well as their candid opinions. An essential component of effective listening is the ability to conversationally ask the right probing questions, never interrupt, and ask for clarifications. Effective listeners do not make instant judgments about what people mean, but rather probe deeper to be certain they understand.

3. Although learning and listening are prerequisites to true leadership, one cannot be considered a real leader unless he actually leads. That means that leaders take their wisdom, experience and expertise, combine it with effectively listening to be certain they fully understand the situation, adversity or potential challenges, and then taking directed and timely action.

If you want to be a leader, begin with commitment to learning, follow that with learning how to effectively listen, and then, finally, lead by example and by taking timely and meaningful action.

With over 30 years consultative sales, marketing, training, managerial, and operations experience, Richard Brody has trained sales and marketing people in numerous industries, given hundreds of seminars, appeared as company spokesperson on over 200 radio and television programs. He’s negotiated, arranged and organized hundreds of events.

Richard’s owned businesses, been a COO, CEO, and Director of Development, as well as a consultant. His company Website is [http://www.plan2lead.net]http://www.plan2lead.net, and he can be followed on Twitter @rgbrody. For great information on many topics, visit PLAN2LEAD’s Facebook page and LIKE ( http://www.facebook.com/Plan2lead )

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