10 Signs that You are a True Leader

Do you have what it takes to be a leader? Leadership is essential to achieving a common goal. A common goal can be a goal of your organization, department, team, nation or even just a personal common goal of your mind and body, such as total health and wellness. Some people want to take the challenges of being a leader. There are also other people who just want to become followers and avoid the greater responsibilities inherent to a leader. But leadership is not only wanted, but it is done and lived. True leaders are not only persons who possess power, position and authority, but they are the ones who were born, grow, live and die as leaders. If you want to know if you have the guts to be a leader, the following 10 signs will let you know if you have what it takes to be a true leader.

1. You do the extraordinary things. You travel the road less traveled; you enter the narrow gate where few people enter. Leaders become leaders because they do the things that are not usually done by the common people. This attribute of a leader is connected with courage and the will to succeed. If you do things that are not usually done by the common people, then it’s one sign that you’re a leader.

2. You don’t have pride but you have a lot of honor. You can distinguish pride from honor, which are two different things. Pride is an enemy of humility, but honor is a friend of humility. This is because pride is selfish, while honor is selfless. Pride bears bad consequences, while honor bears good fruits. If you are humble, selfless and honorable, or, if you can accept your own mistakes and take your share of blame, then you might be a leader.

3. You are generous while keeping yourself abundant. You are kind and have compassion with people who are in need. You share your success, blessings, recognition and profit. You keep yourself fruitful so that people can harvest your fruits. You are diligent to maintain your prosperity so that you will always have things to share to other people. If you’re only generous, but you are lazy and doesn’t work diligently to achieve prosperity, then you might not be a true leader.

4. You have great principles and can stand on those principles. You are deep and wise; you have principles and you are willing to stand and fight for your principles. Your principles emerge not only from your mentor or from your experience, but they are also the results of your reflections and realizations. If you love reading, listening, experimenting, learning and understanding, then you also have one of the signs of a true leader.

5. You can see the future. You have a vision and you can clear up that vision through the careful analysis of the history and the wise consideration of causes and effects. You’re also an advanced thinker who considers not only the short term, but also the long term things that will happen. You even have insights of the things that last forever. If you think, plan, calculate and live the future, then you’re also having one of the indications of a real leader.

6. You’re a good teacher. You love to share light and enlighten people. You like to tell them the right direction and the way to life and the truth. You want to teach people to lead themselves and desire to teach them long-term solutions. If you are knowledgeable, informative, truthful, and you love to shape people’s lives, then you might be a true leader.

7. You want change and you don’t change until you achieve that change. You always desire progress for yourself and for everybody. You are creative, innovative and revolutionary. You don’t want to see the world and the people who live on it turning bad. You always go for what is right. If you love to change the world for good, and you are fixed to that, then you have one of the signs of a genuine leader.

8. You are happy and you can share that happiness to others. You have joy in your heart, and no one can take away that happiness within you no matter how many people hurt you. You’re truly happy because you have contentment, peacefulness, hope and thankfulness. You stay happy because you want to share happiness to others.

9. You are influential. There is power in your words; there is also power in your actions. You can lift up their spirits because you are “down to Earth”.  You can make them trust and believe you because you are saying the truth. You can inspire and motivate people. You can, because you are self-inspired and self-motivated in the first place. You can influence yourself and can have self-control. This is a sign of leadership.

10. You’re a good follower. Although you are a leader by position, you also follow your followers to see to it that they are alright. You make rules, and you follow those rules. You are also a disciple – a disciple of discipline. You don’t follow what is not right, and money is not your master. But you follow righteousness, and love is your master. If you are a master who overcomes things that aren’t right, and you are a servant who serves righteousness, then you can be a great leader.

So, do you have any sign of a true leader? Yes, those signs above seem to be so hard to find, to try and to perform. They are fundamentalist and seem to be idealistic. But that is what true leadership is all about. That is why true leaders are rare in existence.