“Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”

– John C. Maxwell

This quote by the famous American author explains why everybody needs to have leadership qualities in them, whether they are leading a team or a group of people in their area of expertise or just have a regular job or life. One doesn’t need to be a leader to have those qualities. If you have great leadership qualities in you, you can influence people around you in a way that they find meaning in their lives.

Parents should focus on instilling leadership traits in their children, so they grow up to be better humans and don’t have to learn about leadership at a later stage. There are many ways to instill leadership skills in children:

Importance of having leadership qualities
Leadership is not something some might or might not like. Just like good nature and character, leadership traits are important, and each child has that potential in him/her to grow up to be a great leader. Again, a great leader does not mean he has to become a political leader or team leader in a game or even at work. Having the characteristics of a leader is essential irrespective of where you are in life.

How can you incorporate leadership qualities in your child
It is not a difficult task to introduce these qualities in your child. You can do small things to develop your child’s character.

Start with setting an example. Children learn a lot from what their parents do rather than what they preach. Take your kids with you for community work so they know the importance of volunteering. Working together and working for others is a great way to develop compassion in your children.

Give them enough freedom to choose their own field of interest. It is important for your child to feel passionate about a specific field of interest. Anything imposed will not work out in a way great way for them.

There is cut-throat competition and then there is healthy competition. It is important for your child to know the difference. Get your child to read as much as possible growing up. Reading about great leaders in the history is essential for their mental growth. Most great leaders have sacrificed many things, and this is how they will know the importance of sacrifice and greater good.

Communication and articulation are two essentials of a good leader. Without the two, it is difficult to put forward your views inform of people. Focus of their communication skills as that will take them a long way.

Leadership or having leadership qualities in you, irrespective of what and where you are in life, is highly necessary. Leadership qualities help in uplifting yourself and everyone around you. There are many reasons why each one of us should learn about leadership qualities and implement them in our lives to make it better and achieve our personal and professional growth.

Benefits of having leadership qualities
John Quincy Adams, once an American statesman, said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader”. Inspiring others from your words and actions is an act of leadership. You can be an employee in company, but if your actions and words are influencing other to achieve their goals, you have leadership qualities in you.

People with leadership qualities are more compassionate. Compassion is one thing that is universally required. When each one of us has leadership qualities in us, we can spread compassion in the world. A world filled with compassion is better than a world filled with competition and blind success.

Leadership qualities help you unite everyone around you. Unity is needed to build understanding in everyone. We usually see that a team that is working toward a common goal has a difference in opinions and internal clashes. This disrupts the work environment and creates unnecessary tension. When the leadership qualities are in place and implied correctly, these problems can be easily avoided.

At workplace, great leadership will help employees feel important and valued. However, a leader must genuinely feel that the people around him/her are just as important as himself/herself. Leadership is something that has been misunderstood widely, and it is important that we understand what true leadership is all about. In the end, it all comes down to compassion. Compassion helps one build leadership qualities.

You can be a leader at your home, in the park, on the train while you are commuting, while talking to your friends at a bar or a restaurant, or even while talking to people who are at your service (cleaning staff, waiters, drivers, etc.).

In the end, it is important to understand that everybody we come across has their own problems to deal with. A great leader is someone who understands that be kind to all.