Growth success and leadership itself has become a booming business in the 21st century and an enormous amount of research has been conducted into discovering its secrets. Businessmen and educators like Anthony Robins, Bob Proctor and Bryan Tracy to name a few will all promote what they believe to be the ‘secret key to leadership’, however it usually comes with a price and quite a high financial price at that. Now every seminar, every course and every newly acquired piece of information will always be a constructive use of your time however when those 1 or 2 pieces of information come with a $10-15,000 price tag you must stop to consider whether it is worth it and whether the information you are looking to acquire can be absorbed from a far cheaper resource. Admittedly any from of information that you are looking to acquire will always come with a price tag I mean we do live in a capitalist society after all, however after spending thousands of dollars and years of my time hearing the same messages from all of these businessmen I have found it a far more constructive and lasting benefit to develop the discipline of researching and discovering my own answers as it will be throughout this search that your journey into leadership refinement and your lessons of personal responsibility will begin.

'If you think education is expensive, try ignorance' – Derek Bok

On your journey to create the person you believe yourself potentially capable of becoming the issue of leadership will inevitably raise its head. When we think of leadership we tend to lean towards that of world leaders or the wealthiest businessmen. Even when the word is spoken it is generally in reference to the most highly success conditioned and the most well known personalities in the world such as Richard Branson, the late Kerry Packer and Donald Trump but is this true leadership? We are all capable of unique and truly extraordinary accomplishments throughout our lives however unless personal disciple, emotional control and goal setting has been constructively put into place, none of these accomplishments would come to fruition, isn’t that leadership? The reality is that you simply cannot control other human beings, you can influence, inspire maybe even encourage however the only area of leadership that you can realistically control is that of your own personal discipline. So while you may not be dominating the worlds real estate arena, changing the world’s view on racism or ending the worlds current war between organised religion, couldn’t personal discipline be viewed as true leadership. Each one of us whether it’s a conscious or unconscious act will influence everyone that we interact with throughout our lives, from our children to our coworkers even those we pass in the street. We are constantly effecting and influencing the world around us however if we haven’t reached the stage that we can control ourselves and our emotions effectively then how can we positively influence ourselves and in turn those around us? What if leadership were an individual competency, what would it be and how could we define it? Throughout history the definition of leadership itself has always been a moving target and has usually been referred to only in respect to those that have already achieved success. However you must become aware of the fact that our modern day media has created the leadership myth by simply connecting material acquisition with popularity and then labeling it ‘leadership’. Since when has financial success been considered refined leadership? It may very well be a by-product of effective leadership by all means but leadership itself? I think not. There are countless scams and cons in today’s society designed to quickly acquire financial riches and I seriously doubt that anyone looking into leadership essentials would ever class this example as true leadership. Conversely in today’s manic society with even our children falling prey to mass media marketing, drug abuse and gang violence it is undeniable that the ability to raise a well balanced, self confident and emotionally mature child would be a perfect manifestation of true leadership in its finest form.

'What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.' Ralph Waldo Emerson

So if it’s our intention to encourage and refine our own personal growth in respect to our individual and unique leadership qualities then where do we start? Of course one way would be to emulate those who have already achieved leadership success while travelling their own path and while it’s a great way to inspire and encourage our own growth as well as generally contexualising leadership where is there room left for developing our own unique talents while refining our individual style? Emulating others is simply not the answer and will only get you so far along your journey to defining your own and individual strengths. However on your journey to true leadership your first step will always be that of definition. To define what it is that you personally consider true leadership to be. This will be your first individual choice, for those looking to build a successful, fulfilling professional life a reference to the qualities possessed by Richard Branson maybe a positive directional sign post or for those looking to create a fulfilling spiritual existence people such as the Nelson Mandela or Ghandi maybe the inspiration and direction that they are looking for. So what will your paradigm of leadership be? This will be the first question that you will be faced with and without a clear answer and resulting goal you will not even get out of the gates.

‘The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality’

Whatever course it will be that you have chosen to follow at this time in your life the following information will help to identify and refine the leadership essentials that you will need to acquire in order to fulfill your unique potential. The following information has been complied as a result of reading some of the finest books and authors on the subject including the 20yrs of research complied by the Harvard business school in an attempt to save you thousands of dollars as well as the most precious thing that you have, your time. It is my hope that the following information be used to encourage reflection and the resulting wisdom that will allow you to create, define and continue to refine the unique leadership qualities we all possess in order to improve your own life and the life of those you around you. However while on this path please keep in mind that as with everything to do with personal growth and evolution, everything is on its way somewhere, everything is a ‘work in progress’ and it’s very rarely the final destination that is of true importance, of course you must have a goal, a target to aim for, however its always the path taken, the journey itself that has always mattered the most. Evolving into the leader that you know yourself capable of becoming is a life long adventure of discovery. True leaders trust and rely on their own instincts just as much as they do their acquired skills and knowledge. You must know your own short comings as clearly as you do your own capabilities, limitations and ambition. Great leaders possess the courage to change themselves and their environment while relying heavily on their own unique strengths and desires to find their way.

'To sit back and let fate play its hand out and to never guide it, is not the way man was meant to operate.'

The research on effective leadership has surfaced several consistent elements:

• Leaders know themselves thoroughly inside and out, their weaknesses and their strengths. A clear realistic and in-depth level of self knowledge is the foundation of true leadership.
• Accepting complete responsibility for who you have become as a result of your life experiences as well as who you have chosen to grow into.
• Refining the ability to search for lessons at a much greater depth than the average person and to reflect on those lessons learnt in order to produce the wisdom necessary for growth.
• Leadership is often defined through demonstrating confidence and definiteness of purpose in all decisions.
• Worldly knowledge, leaders know their world as intimately as they know themselves
• True leaders are directed by a guiding vision they have a clear idea of who they are, what they want and they are relentless in breaking through any setbacks that bar their way.
• Passion is the fire that burns in all great leaders they love what they do, this is evident in their actions and they inspire others through merely their presence.
• One of the most primary elements of leadership is that of integrity and this consists of three main areas:

1. Self-Knowledge - Leaders know their strengths and weaknesses, through this they are clear on what they want to do and why and they never lie to themselves.
2. Candor - A repetitive and consistent dedication to honest thoughts and actions.
3. Maturity - Leaders learn by following, they earn their status through dedication, observation, and working with and through others successfully

• Trust is more a result of great leadership than it is a part of it, its one of the only ingredients that cannot be acquired rather it must be learnt and consciously refined and without it leadership itself simply does not exist.
• True leaders are risk takers they understand that only through a desire to acquire knowledge is any risk reduced and they are committed to the art of learning from their mistakes.

As an effective leader adversity will become your ally, failure is an unavoidable path to the success that we are all searching for. Each failure that you survive will strengthen you both emotionally and psychologically and will open the door to the potentially integrated wisdom that has accumulated throughout those experiences. Society has always considered failure as a highly negative experience however the reality is the only way to succeed is by accepting, learning from and overcoming failure itself. Effective leaders have developed the ability to actually see failure itself as a positive, refining and strengthening experience. Failure often opens up the opportunity to explore your own personal depths and reflect on your experiences which is one of the most integral parts of discovering who you are and what makes you tick. Failure allows you to learn from your past experiences and therefore equips you with the wisdom essential for your eventual success.

'Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved'

With any gift of strength, there is an associated weakness. Without "bad", there would be no "good". Without "difficult", there would be no "easy". We value our strengths, but we often curse and ignore our weaknesses. To grow as a person and get what we want out of life, we must not only capitalize upon our strengths, but also face our  weaknesses and deal with them. That means taking a hard look at ourselves and our potential problem areas. Although it may be depressing to face our weaknesses, please remember that this process is designed to enact positive change, to grow into their own potential, and to live happy and successful lives.

'Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and very little concept of the odds against them.'

On your journey to developing your leadership skills one of the most valuable lessons that must be learnt is that of reflection. Reflection is one of the most essential elements to self knowledge as it allows you to learn from your past experiences, mistakes and failures and assists in broadening your perspective on your future as well as increasing your internal level of self confidence and self esteem. It helps to put your past events into perspective and allows you to clarify the true meaning of those experiences, in other words, your past experiences whether positive or negative can all be used as stepping stones to the self knowledge required to integrate wisdom and successfully move you forward. It’s often said that people who haven’t failed simply haven’t tried hard enough, Thomas Edison was reported to have said, ‘I haven’t failed I’ve just found 999 ways to not make a light bulb’. As soon as any extraordinary achievement has been reached our society tends to immediately forget the hundreds of failures and years of struggle it takes to acquire that level of success. Your ability to bounce back from each failure that will inevitably cross your path on your journey will be the one skill directly responsible for you eventually attaining your goals.

'The further backward you look the further forward you can see.'

Your depth of understanding and your level of self knowledge must be authentic. Anyone trying to fully express themselves and their own unique leadership capabilities must have an individual and authentic view on life. We all see our lives and the experiences throughout those lives uniquely however true leaders embrace those differences and develop strengths and competencies based around those unique capabilities. Great leadership is often seen throughout the ability to transform that unique and individual outlook on life into the ideas and resulting accomplishments that gratify and fulfill their lives. The most rewarding achievement that anyone can accomplish throughout their life will be to construct their goals and accomplishments through their unique perspective and individual strengths. The key to accomplishing this is through self knowledge. Self knowledge is the building block not only of refined leadership but also of maturity and personal growth.

The research associated with personal development has revealed four notable areas that require attention and refinement to aid our path to refined leadership.

One: Refining the skill of trusting your instincts. Self aware leaders realise when they have fallen short of their true potential and refuse to accept anything but their best efforts. They also know that the acquisition of knowledge and their commitment to personal growth is the way out of that comfort zone and they are committed to acquiring whatever knowledge or tools they deem necessary to elevate above any shortcomings, personal, intellectual or otherwise that stand in their way.

Two: Accepting complete and total responsibility for yourself, your actions and your life. Blame and justification is an ever present trap often used by people as an excuse for refusal to accept responsibility for their current circumstances. In today’s fast changing world most people will change their careers between 4 - 6 times throughout their lives the only constant throughout that time will be the acquired knowledge, experiences and wisdom that has been collected throughout that life span. These are your unique qualities and your individual perspective on life, if for any reason you find yourself lacking in any of the areas that will be required to move you forward, then it is your responsibility to consciously go out and acquire whatever knowledge or skills that you need.

Three: The acquisition of wisdom. Wisdom is a combination of knowledge and experience with reflection only when these three areas have been integrated does the knowledge itself become of any use. Throughout your life it will be your primary job to learn the lessons that life throws your way at a deeper level than the ordinary person. Your well of wealth will be your ability to enhance your own depth of knowledge, understanding and resulting perspective on life by integrating and making practical use of your own unique level of wisdom.

Four: True understanding comes from the creation of wisdom which is a result of reflecting on and learning from your experiences, however there are also three levels of knowledge integration that is generally understood to produce long term intellectual advancement.

            1st         you learn a subject.

            2nd       you teach it.

            3rd        you write about it.

This is due to the fact that the human condition absorbs knowledge on multiple levels. Some people are highly visual, some kinesthetic, some absorb by hands on repetition and some are primarily intellectual, whatever your primary strength may be it is the act of reading, teaching and then physically writing your subject matter that will enable you to truly understand and integrate whatever information you are trying to learn. This sequence is imperative if you intend to become the master of your life and your journey into true leadership.

Perspective and wisdom grows with each integrated step of acquired knowledge, reflection is the key that makes all your past and present experiences pay positive dividends throughout your life, it’s what allows you to see through any form of clouded vision or perspective and clarifies what it is that has truly occurred throughout those experiences. Whether they are in your past or present, it’s never to late to learn the lessons need in order to reach your true and unique potential.

'Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.'

The goals that you pursue aren’t worth pursuing unless you truly enjoy the journey. Anyone that has become efficient at the learnable ability to set and achieve goals of any size will tell you that while the final satisfaction of accomplishing any goal is always exhilarating, however the majority of your time will actually be spent on the journey itself, negotiating the path and overcoming the obstacles in your way. It is through negotiating this path that you will hopefully realise that success of any kind never comes in one giant leap. The overnight success theory is another one of our modern media myths. Success itself is always obtained through short well thought out steps and pre set goals. If you’re expecting to be happy only when you’ve reached your final destination then you will be waiting quite some time for your happiness to arrive, and when it does it will only come once, not a very good deal if you ask me. Why not try to set shorter far more attainable goals along your path, this will help to encourage, motivate and energise you while you build your momentum. When you look at your journey in the light of shorter far easier achievements then the satisfaction and the growth you will encounter along that path will not be confined to the end of the mission, rather it will stretch all the way along the entire journey. Between the destination and the journey, the journey has always been the most important of the two, for it's the journey that holds the challenges, it's the journey that contains the lessons and it’s the lessons throughout that journey that produce the wisdom that simply makes life worth living. To fly we have to have resistance. The end result or the arrival at your goal is merely the confirmation of your achievement it’s the realisation that the time has come to set a new and higher goal and to continue on your path of self discovery and growth. As I've said before the best reason to set a goal is to evolve into the identity that would be capable of achieving that goal, the journey allows you to discover who it is that you truly are, what it is that you want and lays down a road map to evolve into the person you believe yourself capable of becoming.

‘The most challenging thing in today’s society is to grow into the person that you truly are while the world is constantly trying make you into something else.’

Vague and undefined goals are like a ship without a captain virtually unachievable as you will wander aimlessly and never reach your destination. Leaders are defined by their ability to set tangible realistic and clearly defined goals. That’s not to say that these goals are easily attainable because true leaders understand the need to constantly stretch and challenge themselves, their level of knowledge and their limitations. True leaders also however never set for themselves overly specific or a stubbornly concrete goal, they understand that the mistakes and lessons on their path are precisely what make the journey and the final worth achieving. Therefore they have understood and integrated that essential understanding that frees them to never give up on their goals, rather simply change the strategy. What’s more important throughout the journey is the level of self confidence, their unique form of self expression and their ambition. It’s the way they live their life, it’s the quality of interaction and it’s the resulting influence that leaders have throughout that journey on everyone that crosses their path that is often far more important than the final destination.

As a developing leader, you can set goals and express yourself by following (4) four primary steps:

1.       Clearly identify and understand the difference between what it is that you want and what it is that you are capable of.

Sooner or later everyone must clarify their capabilities with their limitations and realistically compare them to what it is that they truly want. When we get ‘real’ some level of compromise may be necessary however the challenge throughout this process will be in never giving up on the goal rather changing the strategy. For example an athlete with predominately slow twitch muscle fibers and a reduced muscular frame may turn his attention to coaching and so remain within the environment he loves or someone with an ordinary voice who finds pure joy through singing may pursue a career in songwriting, the trick is to get honestly realistic while pursuing your dreams and think outside the box, this will open up more options that may not always be apparent while focused blindly on a specific ideal.

2.       Clearly identify and understand the difference between what it is that inspires you and what experiences give you the most satisfaction.

By understanding what past experiences have satisfied you the deepest, by discovering your own unique energy and what it is within you that inspires you the most, you will be far better equipped to discover the path in life that truly fulfills you and creates the highest degree of personal gratitude. The world is full of people who have driven themselves to succeed through emulating others and copying someone else’s ideal of success only to find that the gratitude and the ‘life worth living’ that comes with true success continue to evade them. This is one of the greatest tragedies that life can offer and is a trap fallen into usually by those who have refused to truly and honestly look at themselves.

3.       Clearly identify and clarify your personal values and priorities while continuing to refine and re-evaluate them.

All life and growth is a work in progress, your priorities, your values and your identity will continue to evolve with or without your attention therefore you must become aware of the degree of inflexibility that has become present throughout current conditioning and after excepting any shortcomings, it is in your best interest to focus and encourage in all areas of your growth, the fluidity and the flexibility that will allow to you overcome any setbacks and challenges that lay in your path. Becoming hard, rigid and excessively demanding of yourself will never serve you in the long term and will only delay your achievement of the success you are searching for. You must discover what priorities or values that have become a negative influence throughout your current conditioning are, because these are an open doorway, a perfect opportunity to tackle improve and refine your self knowledge and this will only accelerate your growth. Sometimes it’s only when we stumble and fall back that we realize how far it is that we’ve actually come. The greatest success and satisfaction that you will achieve throughout your life will only be that which is in perfect alignment with your priorities and your values. Great leaders are conscious of this fact and are continuously adjusting their path to compensate.

4.       And finally, continually ask yourself are you capable and motivated enough to tackle the obstacles that stand in your way?

Your answer to this question will directly effect your decision to either persist through the challenges present along your current path or to make an educated and mature decision whether to cut your losses and choose an entirely new direction. A realistic and educated decision based on your refined level of self knowledge to discontinue down one path and begin another will never be viewed as a failure because it will always be influenced by your own personal values and priorities. The trick is to never give up on your goals, simply change the strategy.

Great leaders possess many qualities, however surprisingly research has shown that charisma is not necessarily one of them. Technically leadership is simply defined by someone who has followers realistically however leaders must have the ability to inspire, to encourage and to aid in personal growth They must have the ability to instill loyalty in others as its only through successful relationship management that great things are achieved. People must feel that they will be better off following a great leader than to go it alone. The paradox of leadership is that all great leaders must know how to follow. Willing followers must trust their leaders, but trust cannot be mandated it can only be earnt. As a leader, you will earn the trust of those beneath you by consistently employing four qualities:

1. Constancy     Stay on course and remain dedicated to your vision.
2. Congruency   Display and confirm your values, theories, and beliefs in everything you say and do. Actions will always speak louder than words, leaders prove their worth through what they do, think and say on a daily basis
3. Reliability       Support your co-workers in moments that matter. Be there for them and with them when it counts.
4. Integrity         Honor your commitments and promises. Let your word be your bond.

Ultimately, your ability to gather the support and respect of people depends on how well you know yourself, how well you understand the needs of others, and the degree to which you earn their trust by employing those four qualities.

10 guidelines for leadership survival in the 21st century:

1. Manage the dream.  Communicate your vision to others, recruit meticulously, reward and retrain your people, and reorganize as circumstances dictate.
2. Embrace error. Create an atmosphere that encourages your people to take risks. Assure them with words and actions that the only mistake is to do nothing.
3. Encourage reflective feedback. Know the importance of having someone in your life, perhaps a spouse or peer, who will tell you the truth.
4. Encourage dissent. Surround yourself with devil’s advocates who will tell you the difference between what you expect and what could really happen.
5. Display optimism faith and hope. These qualities are contagious. Your team will pick them up and embrace them, too.
6. Expect the best. This encourage those around you to expand beyond self-imposed or artificial limitations and excel in ways that may surprise both you and them.
7. Develop a sense of touch. Develop the ability to discern where the external environment is heading and how you must change if you are to grow and flourish within that future setting.
8. Take the long view. Keep your eyes on the horizon and refuse to become a slave to short-term, bottom-line thinking,
9. Maintain stakeholder symmetry. Balance the competing claims of each internal and external group that has an interest in your organization.
10. Create partnerships. Recognize the value and wisdom of creating relationships with people and organisations whose future is aligned with yours.

'The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it’s on a football field, in the army or an office'

reference material:

On Becoming A Leader by Warren Bennis

(highly recommended reading)

The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership by Steven B. Sample

Leadership That Gets Results by Daniel Goleman

Harvard Business Review