Last night I met with my Master Mind group. There are three of us, and I consider the other two knowledgeable and trusted friends my personal board of directors.
We are a friendly alliance of minds that meets once or twice a month with a commitment to help each other achieve our main professional goal. We review plans and discuss the strategies and actions required to execute those plans. So it was no surprise that I awoke today more energized than usual, appreciating their honesty, ideas, feedback and cooperative spirit. Or, in other words, their energy.
Then this morning I received an email that reinforced my thoughts and feelings about last night’s gathering. It was the weekly “Yesterday and Today” newsletter from the Napoleon Hill Foundation. One of the articles included Hill’s list of the qualities he believed a successful leader must possess. I do love a powerful list, so I think this itemization of leadership qualities is worth sharing. And I hope you’ll find it as useful as I do. Those qualities are:
- Personal initiative.
- The adoption of a definite major purpose.
- A motive to inspire continuous action in pursuit of a definite major purpose.
- A Master Mind alliance through which you may acquire the power to attain your definite purpose.
- Self-reliance in proportion to the scope and object of your major purpose.
- Self-discipline sufficient to insure mastery of the head and the heart, and to sustain your motives until they have been realized.
- Persistence, based on the will to win.
- A well-developed imagination, controlled and directed.
- The habit of reaching definite and prompt decisions.
- The habit of basing opinions on known facts instead of relying on guesswork.
- The habit of going the extra mile.
- The capacity to generate enthusiasm at will, and to control it.
- A well-developed sense of details.
- The capacity to take criticism without resentment.
- Familiarity with the ten basic motives that inspire all human action.
- The capacity to concentrate your full attention upon one task at a time.
- Willingness to accept full responsibility for the mistakes of subordinates.
- The habit of recognizing the merits and abilities of others.
- A positive mental attitude at all times.
- The habit of assuming full responsibility for any job or task undertaken.
- The capacity for applied faith.
- Patience with subordinates and associates.
- The habit of following through with any task once begun.
- The habit of emphasizing thoroughness instead of speed.
- Dependability, the only requirement of leadership that can be stated with one word – but no less important to success on that account.
Tags: leadership, leadership qualities, leadership skills, managing yourself, Napoleon Hill, personal effectiveness, success
