Great Leadership Inspires

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

We're all tempted to think of a leader as someone who seems to exude power and strength, someone with natural effortless confidence.  We may even be tempted to consider success a leadership quality.  But while these are qualities often found in leaders, are they the qualities that make a leader great?  Not necessarily.  If strenght, power and confidence were the only characteristics of a great leader, the schoolyard bully would qualify.

No, strength, power, confidence, success and even other qualities such as charisma and charm are not the key marks of great leadership.  Great leadership inspires.

A great leader inspires others to be great.  A truly great leader has the ability to bring the best out in others, to achieve, to set up and reach towards personal goals.  A great leader motivates others into action.  It is the person who can inspire others into becoming what they were meant to be, what they were created to be, and to find their purpose in life who takes ordinary leadership to extraordinary levels . . . to greatness.