The Art of Leadership and the Skills of a Successful Leader

The leadership personality is defined as the person who has the required enthusiasm and strong desire to achieve goals. Also, the leadership person is the one who can gather people and direct them to achieve these goals. Or it is the art of treating human nature or the art of influencing human behavior to ensure their obedience, trust, respect and cooperation. It means the art of management, not the management itself.

Is leadership inherited or acquired?

It is agreed among many management and leadership professors that most leadership skills can be acquired, unlike leadership skills that are linked to instinct. However, the fundamental point of difference is in (the origin of leadership), and accordingly there are three directions to answer this question:

• Hereditary leadership from early childhood.
• Leadership with learning and practical experience.
• Leadership depends on the dominant culture of the organization; There is a culture that encourages leadership talent and a culture that does not.
• Leadership is a science and an art, so it can be learned. Several factors influence its learning:

• Instinct and early childhood.
• Learning.
• Oriented training.
• Experimentation.
• Failure.

The importance of leadership:

• Leadership represents the link between employees and the institution’s plans and future visions.
• It works to unify the employees’ efforts towards achieving the set goals.
• It controls the problems facing the work and drawing the necessary plans to solve them.
• It develops individuals, their training, care, and motivation, and the increase of human and practical skills.
• It keeps up the surrounding changes and employing them to serve the organization.
• It strengthens the positive forces in the institution and reduces the negative aspects as much as possible.
• Leadership is a force of interaction, taking, and giving.

The difference between leadership and management:

• Talking about leadership is as old as history, while talking about management did not start until the last decades of the nineteenth century. However, leadership is a branch of management science.
• Management focuses on four main processes:

• Planning.
• Organizing.
• Direction and supervision.
• Censorship.

• Leadership focuses on three main processes:

• Determine direction and visibility.
• Mobilize strength under this vision.
• Motivation and enthusiasm.

• Leadership focuses on emotion while management focuses on logic.
• Leadership is concerned with work as a whole “choosing the right business”, while management is concerned with the particles and details "choosing the right way to work".
• They participate in defining the goal and creating the appropriate atmosphere to achieve it, then making sure that the required is accomplished according to certain standards and foundations.

Keys to the leadership character:

1. Balance:

To know how to make a balance between matters, and how to separate and balance firmness and toughness, between vanity and self-confidence, and between adventure and recklessness.

2. Creativity:

The leader is required to provide different, creative, and innovative solutions to problems, and to reach their goals in unconventional ways.

3. Self-confidence:

The person who is confident in their abilities and skills, knows the strengths of their personality, and try to get rid of weaknesses.

4. Initiative:

There is no benefit for the personalities to possess creativity and innovation skills, have a certain amount of self-confidence, and remain in their place, not taking control of matters in their life, and not starting to move life towards what they want.

Habits that must be available in management leaders:

Due to the changes in behavioral theories, researchers and writers have begun to search for the development of new theories and models in leadership, which take into account the situational variables that impact the effectiveness of the leadership personality, and as a result of extensive studies, many theories have emerged.

The seven habits of management leaders as seen by Stephen Covey in his famous book:

1. Be selective about your response:

This quality relates to self-knowledge, and knowing motives, tendencies, and abilities. Do not let anything or anyone control you. Always be active, not passive and be influential first, not influenced.

2. Your goal should be clear when you start doing something:

It means start and focus your eyes on the goal and let the imagination fly away from the captivity of the past, the imprisonment of experience, and the narrowness of memory.

3. Arrange the importance of things according to their priority:

This is related to the ability to exercise management and control the will. Do not let the tide of life guide you the way it goes.

4. Think in terms of the two winning parties:

It means believing that one person's success does not mean the other's failure. Try to solve problems for the benefit of everyone. This quality is linked to broad-mindedness with great insights that follows the mentality of abundance, not the mentality of shortage and scarcity.

5. Try to understand first to make it easier for you to be understood:

The feature of courage accompanied by consideration for the feelings of others. The problem of communication and dialogue is the main cause behind all problems, and this quality is related to respecting and listening to the opinion of others. It is wrong for your listening to be for the sake of answering and replying, but rather it should be for the sake of understanding and emotional participation.

6. Creativity:

The feature of creativity, that is, the ability to innovate. Creativity comes from the dialogue of two minds, each enjoying appreciation and respect for the other.

7. Renew your abilities:

Renew the unique feature of continuous improvement or self-renewal in order to avoid repetition and routine. If you do not try to feel and renew yourself, you will fall into the abyss of routine, where you lock yourself in narrow methods and systems.

Skills of an effective leader:

An effective leader has some of the most important skills which are:

1. “Intellectual” mental skills: Such as thinking, planning, creativity, and the ability to visualize.
2. “Social” human skills: Such as relationships, communication, the art of listening and motivation.
3. “Specialized” technical skills: Such as organization, implementation, problem-solving, and decision-making.

Characteristics of an effective leader:

An effective leader has the most important characteristics which are:

1. “Instinctive” personal characteristics: Such as courage, generosity, intelligence, firmness, honesty, humility, and loyalty..
2. “Acquired” personal characteristics: Such as faith, knowledge, a sense of responsibility, and self-control..
3. Social characteristics (dealing with others): Such as kindness, gentleness, justice, and equality, participation, forgiveness, controlling anger, and accepting advice.

Functions and tasks of an effective leader:

1. Thinking (the thinking leader):

The leader tends to privacy from time to time to think, consider, and visualize, and initiates the right ideas, visualizations, and paths, and enjoys a diverse, renewable high culture that renewal the mind and thought, looks at the future and its challenges and tries to predict and prepare for them, and has a comprehensive mentality and deep view with a long-term strategic dimension.

2. Coaching (the coaching leader):

This leader determines goals, detailed plans, and schedules, supervises the achievement and accomplishment of the set goals, provides individuals and employees with information and necessary instructions to complete the work and about what the work is and how to perform and accomplish it, makes appropriate decisions, unifies and reconciles opinions, proposals and perceptions, monitors and evaluates courses of action based on approved standard criteria. 

3. Change (the changing leader):

Changing and development is an essential task of the leader in terms of goals, means and methods. The changing leader plans for continuous improvement and does not give in to the familiar, and searches for quality by applying the theory of comprehensive quality management, looking for excellence, mastery, and superiority. Also, the changing leader serves people in a distinct way by moving them from the stage of satisfaction to the stage of happiness, keeping abreast of changes and awareness of them through follow-up, demand and travel, especially in light of a changing world, in addition to addressing resistance to change through persuasion, gradualism and providing the appropriate conditions for its acceptance, speed and sense of the value of time in order to perform tasks and work, and daring and accepting the challenge to adopt ideas and methods that are in the interest of the institution. 

4. Moving (the moving leader):

One of the characteristics of effective moving of the leader towards their subordinates is to do the following:

• Exploring, releasing, operating, and mobilizing energies towards the goals set.
• Maintaining team spirit, promoting teamwork, and helping and encouraging individuals to accomplish their work.
• Practicing the principle of leadership by example, and enhancing the self-discipline of individuals towards the vision and mission.
• Working to increase the interaction between the individual's goals and the goals of the institution, and making room for commendable competition among employees for better performance.
• Studying implementation obstacles and finding appropriate solutions to them, and celebrating the successes and achievements of the institution. 

5. Motivation (the motivating leader):

Motivation includes respecting and appreciating the efforts made by the employees in the institution, meeting the psychological, living and mental needs of the employees in the institution, encouraging and responding to human tendencies and allowing employees to automatically express their feelings and opinions, and involving them in setting goals and performance standards and giving them freedom to choose the means and give them opportunities to make decisions related to their work, implement an appropriate pay system, establishing a reward system to encourage workers, and a fair system of punishments for defaulters. 

6. Activation (the effective leader):

The leader achieves the highest levels of effectiveness by achieving the goals and results set for the institution, achieves the highest levels of efficiency through the optimal use of financial and human resources, provides all the requirements of productivity, enables employees to perform outstandingly and trains them continuously on its requirements. Also, this leader activates employees, work, and environment of the work by going to the right resources, seeks to achieve a high level of belonging, commitment and loyalty to the institution, and works to transform ideas into actions by allowing room for trial and error. This leader links personal success with collective success and vice versa, reminds employees of internal and external challenges and risks on an ongoing basis. 

7. Delegating (the delegated leader):

This leader must reduce as much as possible the power of the center or authority, reducing individuals’ dependence on the leader and resorting to them in every big and small matter. Also, this leader must distribute responsibilities, involve subordinates in making decisions, and give them the necessary authority to solve problems and manage work. This leader must encourage individual initiatives in assuming responsibilities and encouraging the adoption of self-managed teams, follow the principles and steps of effective delegation, and help to facilitate delegation by providing accurate information. Moreover, this leader must use delegation as a method of practical training and continuous follow-up by the leader to the performance of delegates.

8. Training (the training leader):

This leader must organize the training process, provide appropriate and sufficient budgets, times and places, focus on meeting the training needs of the institution, use training as an incentive to encourage employees and ensure that training is to serve and meet the needs of the institution. Also, this leader must apply advisory training programs and emphasize training programs even in difficult times and not consider them secondary, care for individuals, and help them and train them continuously on skills that can be learned in order to achieve the interests of the institution. 

9. Atmospherics (the atmosphere maker):

One works to ensure security and comfort at work, and to show friendliness, understanding and mutual respect, creating harmony and unity between the opinions of employees and reducing tension, build trust among employees and between them and the institution also emphasize and encourage positive relationships, trying to understand others before they understand them, master the art of hearing and listening to employees, forgiveness and accepting apologies, which are among the most important requirements for creating a healthy atmosphere, creating a cooperation and encouragement atmosphere, and dedicating the principle of individual success leads to the success of the institution.

10. Influence (the influential leader):

An influential leader follows a win-win strategy. An influential leader practices the methods of promotion and intimidation to influence the employees and avoids harshness and practices the language of persuasion, logic and emotion. Also, this leader has a high ability to control themselves and be patient with others, and enjoys a high degree of acceptance among workers for his personal qualities. This leader has the ability to learn and admit mistakes when necessary, has a sense of humor, fun, quick wit, and shows love to others, has the ability to public speaking and public talking, and understands people and deals with them assuming good faith despite their mistakes. 

Features of future leaders:

Among the most highlighted features of future leaders are the following:

1. To be a person with a long-term vision and a message, so they feel that his job is to move the people around them in a civilizational shift.
2. To have high goals and standards, and enjoy optimism, hope and faith.
3. To enjoy the respect of others and see themselves as a role model, and enjoy high confidence and a high self-esteem.
4. To have a special human touch, and have a personal charm because of their way of thinking and behaving.
5. To enjoy clear activity, physical and dynamic presence, and unlimited enthusiasm.
6. To express the feelings of followers who are unable to express them, clarify the feelings between subordinates, and provide solutions to their problems.
7. To mentally consult their subordinates and encourage them to re-examine their goals and methods, and seek to achieve their desires.
8. To follow the following equation: personal attraction + inspirational leadership + mental stimulation + individual interest = motivation.
9. To encourage thinking, criticism, and opposition, and is committed to excellence, readiness, and willingness to take risks.
10. To love science widely and abundance, have unlimited curiosity, and believe in people's capabilities and teamwork.

Leadership is, after all, an art. It is not limited to a high position and a high salary, and it does not mean only directing orders and instructions, but rather it must be through influence, possessing real and strong personal skills, the ability to deal with others and setting an example for them, and finally believing that leadership is teamwork. “Members of teamwork are the leaders of tomorrow.”