How to Build Your Leadership DNA , by Gbitse Barrow

Would you like to know what it takes to be a great leader? Well, in the words of leadership writer John Maxwell, leadership is a process that  develops daily. To be a great leader you need to commit to certain actions each day - your daily agenda will reveal your commitment to great leadership, and help you to build your leadership DNA.

Your Leadership DNA consists of these 6 actions that great leaders reflect and act upon each day:

• Finding the Right Place: At the beginning of each day, great leaders ask themselves questions about their purpose in life, their vision, values, mission and focus, and if their lives have true meaning. To lead others you must lead yourself first.

• Finding the Right People: Each day, leaders take time to review their people – their most important resource, and examine the quality of people they have and make decisions about the quality of people they need to attract to make their team work

• Motivating & Keeping the Right People: Leaders seeks ways each day to motivate and retain their key people. They pay attention to building relations and practicing tough empathy with the people they lead.

• Driving Results with the right People: A leader’s daily agenda will be incomplete if she doesn’t drive tangible results for her team. Leaders pay attention to setting and communicating the vision; delegating responsibilities and not tasks, fostering and developing teamwork; giving and receiving feedback, and monitoring performance.

• Developing the Right People: To sustain the results that they produce, leaders need to invest time with the people they lead, by coaching, mentoring and teaching them. To become a great leader you must pour yourself out on the people that you lead, and help your followers grow and learn new things each day.

• Multiplying Results with the Right People: The real test of your leadership ability lies in your ability to sustain the results you created by building sustainable systems. Your daily agenda must focus on leading leaders and not followers, and teaching your younger leaders how to lead and multiply the impact of your results.