subject: What Leadership Lessons Can Be Learnt From Today's Modern Leaders? [print this page] Great leaders are always seeking way to improve themselves and better a better leader, or person! Personal and professional development is absolutely key to maintaining smooth (or even accelerated) career progress.
Leaders often look to leadership and management books which are usually an inexpensive way to learn about new leadership styles, get perspective on which leadership styles are being used in what type of organisations with what kind of results. However, leadership books do have a habit of being misleading.
Why am I accusing leadership books of being misleading? Well, it's down to the inherent cause of the book = the author. Authors have a vested interest in a book selling well, and it's sell-ability is linked more closely to how sensational the book is, rather than how factual, thoroughly researched and sensible it is. Just think about 'The 4 hour work week'. Clearly, by suggesting that large chunks of the American population could reduce their 40 hour work week by 90% was unsustainable, and fantastical at best, however it sold in droves.
In reality - the best way to learn about leadership styles is to look by yourself at the modern leaders of today. I'm talking about political leaders such as Obama, Bin Laden, Kim Jong Il, Angela Merkel and others. I'm talking about business leaders such as Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Trump. You can even learn from cultural leaders such as Will Smith, Michael Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger (I feel more inclined to put him in this category than the political group), and Bono.
So what can we learn from this leaders? These people, who for some reason, have been able to grasp onto power, who have been able to create large fortunes, or have been able to generate millions of fans?
The answer is: We can learn everything from them. If you watched interviews with all of them, you'd be able to fill your own book with all the insights! Here's the tricky bit though - the leadership styles of these famous leaders are different, some would say, conflicting.
An attempt to copy the techniques would result in perhaps the worst leadership style ever created! You need to focus on a few key principles from these leaders that you really like, and build from there.
Perhaps you like Will Smith's 'appeal-to-all' attitude, and Nelson Mandela's humbling approach. Perhaps you want to combine that with the conscientiousness of Bono? Be my guest! Take about 5-6 of these principles and write them down. Do they work together? If so, welcome to your new leadership style!
