HeadLine
The gift of giving is perhaps one of the most important things you can do to get you closer to achieving success. It’s definitely important to focus your efforts on getting to your goal, but the one problem with goal setting is that you tend to have a “Me” focused attitude. You should focus on the gift of giving, and find a way where you can add value to someone else. Zig Ziglar said it best: “You can have everything you want in life if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
If you want more courage, use the gift of giving and find a way to encourage someone else. If you want confidence, instill confidence in someone who needs it more.
A friend told me a story about how one of his employees developed self-confidence by simply instilling confidence in someone else. In this article, let’s call her Mary. When my friend chris conducted a performance review, he discovered that Mary lacked self-confidence to perform her role to the highest standards. He knew that Mary had a great deal of potential, so he decided to help her build her self-esteem and self-confidence.
Chris knew that pep talks and positive reinforcement were not enough for Mary to boost her self-confidence. He knew that Mary would need to help someone else gain confidence in himself before she could develop her own confidence. So he encouraged Mary to spend some time with someone who lacked self-confidence. Mary knew a girl who lived in her neighborhood that lacked confidence. Mary talked to the girl, and found out that she enjoyed soccer, but did not excel in it, so she didn’t feel confident in herself. Mary excelled at soccer, so she decided to coach the girl as her gift of giving. After spending time coaching the girl, Mary noticed that the girl’s self-confidence grow dramatically. When Mary saw how this girl grew in confidence right before her eyes, her own self-confidence started to grow because she knew the value she was contributing to the girl’s life. Once her self-esteem and self-confidence expanded, chris observed that her performance increased dramatically.
While it’s important to stay focused on your goals and doing everything you can in your power to achieve them, take a step back once in a while and think about what area in your life you would like to develop. Then find someone who needs it more, and help that person develop in that area. Through that gift of giving, you will see yourself making improvements in that area without even thinking about. Just remember what Zig Ziglar said about helping enough people get what they want first, and then you can have anything you want.
Who would forget the ever-famous line of Peter Parker’s grandfather, “With great power comes great responsibility.” We often expect Spiderman, a comic book, TV, and movie superhero, to be responsible for saving our town, or even the world, in some instances, from evil because he has super powers.
From all the episodes he appeared in, he never let us down. With the power he possesses, he makes sure to be responsible in using it for the good of the people around him.
Leadership is not at all different from being superheroes. Yes, you may not have super powers like Superman and Spiderman, but you have the authority to lead other people towards success. This is so much greater and stronger since it is a power that can be used by real people in this real world.
Hence, being a leader requires great sense of responsibility, the second quality a successful leader should attain.
The power to lead your people towards aiming your vision comes with responsibilities like making sure they are on the right direction, being aware of each and everyone’s tasks and mistakes, and putting them back on the right track when they get lost.
Who said it is easy to be a leader? Well, it is no. It comes with tons of responsibilities. True leaders are willing to accept them all.
There are instances where sometimes it makes us feel better to blame somebody or something else when something goes wrong in a task. However, good leaders should not be doing this.
A leader should take full responsibility of a task – not just before he accepts to take it, but also after it has been accomplished. As much as he is responsible for his team’s success, he should also be responsible for any failure. He represents the whole team so whatever happens to it, he is the one responsible.
Making excuses and blaming something or someone else for failed jobs is not a quality of a good leader. What he should do, instead, is to accept the fact that something went wrong with the organization, even if it is not his fault. It is normal to make mistakes. In fact, mistakes are opportunities to learn something better. As a leader, he must ensure that the team members learn from these mistakes and that these errors will not be repeated next time.
You may not have full control over other people and are not expected to have full control over their actions, but you have full control of your own reactions. Knowing what to do over unexpected and unpredictable situations will make you responsible, hence giving you the feeling of power.
