4 basic qualities that a great leader must have

How to be a GREAT leader

By Mani Jack, M.J.

1. Lead yourself first.

If you study great leaders such as Sir Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad and etc., they basically share the same characters. The most common one is they lead themselves first. They lead by example. If you want to have great followers who could turn out to be great leaders, you must CORRECT yourself first. The qualities that you must basically have are integrity, wisdom, vision and the appreciation of time. In addition to that, you must continuously educate yourself and the most powerful way to achieve that is through reading. A great leader will always challenge himself instead of challenging others. A great leader will always read new subjects which are alien to him because a great leader must be very knowledgeable. When a leader is knowledgeable, he will know exactly what needs to be done for his country because he has the sufficient knowledge about a particular government department or agencies. 

2. Listen

Everybody can talk but only a few can listen. A great leader is the one who is humble enough to believe that he doesn’t know everything which causes him to listen carefully to criticism and suggestions. Listening is very important because if a leader gives a public statement without consulting the right ones, everything that he says will backfire. A public statement which is stated without a careful study will eventually destroy a particular ministry because the intelligent ones in the ministry will be having hard times accepting the wrong directives from a minister. In addition to that, the citizens will also be negatively affected by this wrong directive. 

3. Principles

A leader who doesn’t have principles will be remembered as a political clown for the rest of his life. A great leader must fight for what he believes in as long as that belief is harmless and benefits his people. For example, if a leader believes that moderation is the key towards political stability in his country, he must do everything to make sure that moderation is being practised in his country. If he believes in the importance of human rights, he will translate his words into actions by making sure that every human in his country is well protected by laws. 

4. Experience the complaints or problems in order to know the truth

A weak and lazy leader depends on rumours and his secretary’s beautiful reports. A great leader will not allow himself to be entertained nor fooled by those beautiful reports. A great leader will go to the ground to experience the sufferings of his people. He himself will see those problems for himself so that he can come up with the best solutions to solve the problems. A great leader will have a strong political will to table the issues in the parliament to get each member of the parliament to discuss the issues together in order to serve the people better .

“A great leader is the one who decides to be the change.” M.J.