What is a business leader?

Who is a business leader? This is a person who is constantly striving for self-improvement, he is focused on serving people, believes in people, takes care of them, and is aimed at the “general” good. He is tolerant, able to resolve conflicts in a positive way, has flexibility and optimism. He respects employees and colleagues, listens to their advice and cooperates with them. He is honest and decent, and therefore shares his victory and “laurels” with his team. Right?
Yes, but not really. It is good when a person combines “leadership” and “human” qualities, but, unfortunately, this does not always happen. Therefore, below we will consider the most important misconceptions about leadership.
A leader is a person who professes high social and moral qualities.
It is no secret that the leaders of this world, if we are not talking about business, often do not have such qualities at all. There is no need to give examples here. If we are talking about leadership in the “working” plan only, that is, leadership associated only with a certain work activity, then here, too, moral values ​​and principles are not always present. More precisely, all people, of course, have them, but each person understands them in his own way, and this does not always echo the public concept of what is right and what is not.
The leader’s communication style is positive.
Yes, it could be. It may not be. That is, this condition is completely optional and does not characterize the leader as such. For example, if you believe the books of Richard Branson, then his communication and leadership style is an example to follow if you want to be a strong leader, as well as “adequate” and humanly kind. But if we remember the managerial style of Steve Jobs, then it is immediately clear that he did not particularly “liss” with his employees and even partners. And from here we smoothly move on to the next point.
The leader does not deprive his team of well-deserved glory.
Everyone remembers Steve Jobs. But do people remember his friend Steve Wozniak, with whom he and Jobs assembled their first computers in the garage? Or rather, Wozniak collected them, because Jobs’ talent manifested itself more in management and sales than in computer technology. The same can be said for Mark Zuckerberg, whose relationship with his partners was vividly illustrated in the movie The Social Network.
Perhaps these are the three main points that are worth mentioning. The main idea is that there are few such leaders, as if they came out of their idealistic business fairy tales, if they even exist.
So what is “real” leadership then? We will talk about this in the next post.

Leadership is a broad topic. Books and articles are regularly written about it, so it is naive to believe that all its components can fit in one small post. Nevertheless, further we will try to highlight the most important points of leadership.
A leader can and does more than others.
In other words, the most important aspect of leadership is initiative. Of course, it must be supported by something substantial. That is, it is not just voicing an idea, but also everything that comes after it. For example, perseverance in achieving a goal.
As for outstanding athletes, nothing is impossible for leaders if they set a goal for themselves. But the goal is also not taken “from the ceiling.” It is unlikely that an athlete will set himself the goal of setting a record in a marathon if he cannot even run a couple of kilometers without getting tired.
This is another factor that determines the leader – he is the best or one of the best in his field.
But here everything is not so simple. For example, again, Steve Jobs was a visionary, an innovator, and a great salesperson. But he was not a computer genius. This work was done by his staff. Another thing is that he could manage this process and organize everything in such a way as to achieve phenomenal results. Therefore, this point can be slightly corrected – the leader must have some kind of talent that allows him to do his job at a high level.
However, all people on whose shoulders lies a great responsibility, will still make mistakes as “mere mortals.” A trait that characterizes a leader in this situation is the ability to admit one’s mistakes.
Moreover, it does not matter in front of whom – in front of yourself or in front of the rest, the main thing is the ability to see where you made a mistake. Without this skill, it is simply impossible to develop and improve your future work.
Speaking of further work, the leader must have the gift of “vision”.

As they say, a good chess player sees five moves ahead, and a great one sees one move, but he is always correct. The leader, of course, is not obliged to see five good moves ahead, not one hundred percent, but he must see at least something. He should be able to at least approximately predict what will happen next, how the company should develop in order to build its strategy in advance. How “clearly” he sees this is what distinguishes a good leader from an excellent one. Great leaders are always innovators and visionaries. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk…
Also great, and indeed any leaders are those who know how to influence people.
By the way, this is one of the features that distinguish your textbook boss from a real leader. The boss has de jure power, and the leader has de facto power, despite the fact that often at first he may not have “official” power. A leader is someone who knows how to “charge” people with desire and make them work for a common goal. How he will do it, whether he will observe moral and moral values ​​or will he be a dictator, this is a completely different question. Oddly enough, it does not affect leadership, only how this person will be perceived by other people. Whether he will be “God” or “Satan” for them, if he is a “real” leader, people will follow him anyway.