Office life: leadership 1

Leadership is obviously over used word. During interviews when I was asked what the to-be-improved-skill is, I will say leadership because even a CEO of a fortune 500 company is still working on it. Of course, I will follow up talking about an example in work showing that I do have some of it.

Many people view themselves as born leaders. That reflects the leadership desire.

Many people step up at crisis and try to save or help the rest to find the better solution vs. just save themselves. That reflects the leadership quality.

Many people can prioritize, persuade, motivate and negotiate in the team setting. Those are some of the leadership skills.
A good leader needs all three to be successful. My observation is that most "leaders" have the desire but lack the quality and skills. Looking at the mid level managers in the corporate, most of them are focusing on managing up vs. managing down, which is a clear sign that they lack the quality. Also, many of them lost the “doing-the-real-work” capability along the way of learning to lead. Corporate is fine with that as they are paid to lead.  For the rest of us who are climbing the ladder, we will pretend we have the desire plus the quality, which is never believed to be a rare trait, and just need to improve on the skills until we get there.