#6 Quality of a Leader – A Leader Should Be Influential
The job of a true leader is to lead his people towards a certain successful goal. He simply cannot do this if he has no influence over them. Without influence, he cannot make other people do what he wants them to do.
An ordinary child can influence his parents to buy him a new toy. His parents, on the other hand, can influence their child to do his assignments first before playing. Students can influence their teachers to move their exam on the 5th, instead of on the 1st of the month. Your neighbor can influence you to buy a certain brand of bath soap instead of the one you are using. In other words, anybody can influence other people, may it be kids, students, teachers, parents, your neighbor, or your co-workers. Our society is revolving around influences.
So what makes you excused from being influential when you are the boss, the leader, the one everybody looks up to? In fact, you should be more influential than anybody else should because you are leading people into reaching a common goal. They need your influence!
Most people do their jobs because they need to. They perform in exchange of a salary they can use for everyday living. However, if these people were under a leader who has an effective influence over them, they would do their job because they want to, because they are able to learn from doing it and because they know that it is for the attainment of the team's goal without really keeping in mind the pay they would get. People will follow their leader's instructions gladly and confidently, even without any material incentive, if he is influential.
Leadership is not about having the right to stand in front of your people and order them around, but about being the person they will gladly obey even with a casual instruction coming from behind them.
