The Qualities of Skillful Leadership by Jim Rohn

If  you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a  person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the  gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a  parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.

What’s  important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working  on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:

Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become  a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake  rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.

Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness.  Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind  enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate  enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and  not deal in delusion.

Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build  your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be  willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first  sign of trouble.

You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can’t get to the high  life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is  almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the  human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about  the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance  between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars.  So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction.  It can be cured, but it is a problem.

Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to  build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in  accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without  being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from  ignorance. It’s when you don’t know that you don’t know. Now that kind of  arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate  that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.

Develop humor without folly. That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we  learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly. It’s okay to be fun, but not  foolish.

Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just  accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I’d  like to think it’s unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It’s fascinating.  And I’ve found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at  all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to  work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.