1. Desire to Lead

If you’re going to be an effective leader, the first requirement is that you must want to be a leader. If you don’t want to lead – not everyone does, and there’s no shame in that – then you won’t be passionate about it, you won’t put your heart and soul into it, your people will see that and they won’t be inspired to follow you.

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Leadership isn’t one of those roles that you can take on and hope that you can “fake it until you make it.” You must want to be a leader, right from the very start.

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Too many people get thrown into leadership simply because they were good at the technical aspects of their role. Being good “on the tools” doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be any good at leading people! We’ve probably all worked for someone like this: technically expert but out of their depth when leadership is called for.

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Poor, inadequate, un-confident (or worse, over-confident) leadership leads to unhappy, demotivated people and sooner or later it’s almost guaranteed to lead to conflict. At the root of all that is a person who didn’t really want to be a leader, or whose motivation was dubious.

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We can all think of people who have inveigled themselves into leadership positions when their motivation is not to lead but to dictate. If your motivation for aspiring to a leadership role is merely the promotion of yourself and the pursuit of your own personal wealth and status then you’re not cut out to be a leader.

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True leadership is all about people: their hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, dreams and aspirations. It’s about inspiring, motivating, encouraging, supporting and protecting your followers, so that they can achieve their best both in their personal and professional lives. Leadership is a servant role, and to succeed in it you must first of all desire to serve.