Raising a leader: Are leaders born or made

Are good leaders born or made? Is leadership a natural talent or is it a characteristic that can be nurtured in a child? We believe that parents have a key role to play in developing leadership traits in their children. There is no better place than the home to start training children to become a leader for the future.

Below are the top 10 characteristics to be built into your future leader.

Independence – everyone is born with the natural instinct to become independent, parents tend to over-cater to their children and can stifle this desire. One easy way to achieve independence is to encourage your child to take responsibility in the house. For example teach your child to take his dishes to the kitchen and as he gets older to wash his dishes. Build independence through responsibility.

Team Player – organized sports is great but is not the only way for a child to pick up team player skills. Children can learn to be team players right from the home, dealing with siblings is the first boardroom a child encounters. The ability to take other people’s needs and desires into account is critical in learning to be a team player and a key characteristic of a leader. Learning to be a team player reduces the tendency to be selfish.

Loyalty – Loyalty means being supportive. The best way to teach this is to encourage your child to be supportive of her siblings and friends. A brother looking out for a brother, a sister looking out for a sister. For example children should not get away with ignoring their family or close friends in exchange for an invitation to a party.

Perseverance – If everyone could only get a bottle of this and consume the daily dose. Perseverance is what leaders are made of. The inability to take no for an answer, the strength to keep trying your best to achieve your goals. Successful leaders always have stories of all the failures and set backs that they have overcome on the journey to their success. Success has no secrets – it takes hard work. That is why only 20% of people achieve their goals, they preserver.

Good Attitude – Everything is about attitude and it is not cute to say your toddler has an attitude. An attitude at three will lead to a teenager and an adult with an attitude. Life is full of ups and downs and what makes the difference is the attitude that you have. A good attitude is so critical for all aspects of life – the ability to lead, to follow, to get along with colleagues, bosses, customers and everyone in between. So encourage and teach good attitude from the home. Do not ignore or excuse away a bad attitude.

Empathy – Good leaders are empathetic, that is the ability to think about others needs. The best leaders earn respect and they genuinely care about people. Let your children consider other people’s feelings when they make a comment or take an action. Take it a step further and let them care for the people around them who are not as privileged as they are. The ability to care for the less privileged builds humility and grooms an attitude of gratitude. A good leader does not feel entitled, but is thankful.

Focus on Tasks – These are the days of faster, more and quicker which makes everyone think they are masters of multitasking. The truth is that the best way to get things done is to be thorough and focus on doing a task well. Do not let your children get into the habit of having dinner while using their smart phone and having a conversation. There should be a sense of doing the right thing at the right time – it reduces errors and it also makes them more efficient.

Goals – When a goal is written down it seems to get a life of its own. If a goal can be visualized and written down and backed with action it becomes a reality. Most adults were never trained to do this and one of the biggest areas of regret later in life is not doing enough that you really wanted to. You can only track the goals that you take the time to write down. Encourage your child to have appropriate goals and to celebrate the feeling of accomplishment.

Honesty – Being honest seems to have become a thing of the past, everywhere you turn people seem to get away with doing wrong. The society seems to have relaxed when it comes to holding people to a high standard. In reality the person who is honest, who lives up to their promises and has integrity is more valuable than money in the bank. So with your children do not encourage them to keep secrets, or to get away with lying. This means as a parent you must also be held to this standard.

Financial Skills – Understanding how money works is crucial for a successful future making and handling wealth. Children should learn the value of money from home. Learning how to manage finances is something most people tend to figure out along the way and is very different from just earning a good salary. Creating wealth comes with understanding how to budget, save, invest and the importance of having multiple streams of income. Depending on the age of your child you can encourage them to get a summer job. Children learn best about money when they learn how to handle what they earn. There is a big difference between saying something is expensive and taking them to the store to spend their hard earned Naira after a long day working.

The home front is the best training ground for your future leader. Understand that you are raising a future leader so be mindful of the lessons that your child is learning. Raising a leader takes intentional parenting.

The home front is the best training ground for your future leader.