What Makes An Inspirational Leader Different From Other So-Called Leaders?
What makes an inspirational leader different from other so-called leaders?Although each and every individual do have some idea about what leadership means, it is very surprising to find out that what these people define as leadership is, in reality, something else. This implies that if the real meaning of leadership should be used certain people who have been regarded as leaders in their various places of influence would be seen as not being leaders as they were claimed to be.
Leadership is both an art and an act and it is up to people to make the distinction as to who is really making him or herself a leader and who is just dictating the way in which certain things should be done. However, in order to appropriately and correctly make that distinction between a true and inspirational leader and any other individual with control over a group of people, it is very important that you first look at how these people go about their leadership roles or how they led their people. This is what will be elaborated in the paragraphs below.
Inspirational leaders have inspired themselves: This is to say that whoever qualifies to be an inspirational leader is someone who has enough inspiration in what he or she wishes to do and as such his or her inspiration can be transmitted telepathically to each and every individual who wishes to follow his or her lead. An example of such a person is Buddha. These people do not wait for someone to motivate them before they decide to take an action but rather they are already inspired and as such the motivation to perform an action comes naturally. This is however not the case with other leadership styles as a C.E.O. does not need to be all that inspired in order to get others to work for the achievement of the aims of the organization within which he or she works. Such a person is mostly motivated by the salary and other benefits that he or she gets at the end of every month and therefore even without being personally inspired, he or she can still order others to get the job done.
Inspirational leaders do not worry about who will follow them: People like Buddha and Jesus never tried to coerce others into following or practicing what they were doing. They gave each and every individual who was around, the chance to make their own decisions as to whether they will want to follow them or not. Therefore, those people who decided to follow such leaders were the ones who were able to connect with the inspirational presence of the leader. Inspirational leaders, therefore, make the primary use of an individual’s free will. This is not so with certain leadership styles as the choices of others in the group do not really mean anything to them and as such various things are used to bait such people into following such a person or joining a particular group. Things like competitive remuneration among others are therefore used to entice people to agree to work with such people. This, therefore, eliminates the idea of allowing people to make their own decisions without any external influences.
Inspirational leaders do not control the behaviors of their followers: Whoever gets to follow an inspirational leader gets to keep his or her behavior in check all by himself without being told or ordered to do so. This is another aspect of choice which is associated with all inspirational leaders like Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Roosevelt, and others. None of them sought to control how their members lived their lives but allowed the individual members to rather mold their lives in a way that depicts what they chose to do. These leaders had it all and could have ordered people around but even in those instances when they came face to face with a follower displaying behaviors that were contrary to what they were working for, they gave such people the chance to make their own decisions as to what they should have done.
The main purpose of an inspirational leader is to ensure that he or she takes the lead in whatever initiative he or she wants to introduce and not expect others to do it first. This group of people is always into what they can do about a particular situation and not what they can get others to do about it which is mostly associated with those given supervisory roles who also wield institutional powers to get people to do as they demand.
By now you do know that there are certain things which an inspirational leader does that other so-called leaders do not do and it is these things that set these leaders apart.
About the Author
Dr. Jeff Evans
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