The Leadership Litmus Test: Is There a Leader in You?

As you climb up the professional ladder, your duties and responsibilities multiply with every step you take. Eventually, you have a group of people working under you that needs to be told how to go about doing their tasks in the best way. For a cherry on the top - your own targets are dependent on their task results.

In this situation, you have to choose for yourself, are you going to be a leader? Or are you going to be just another manager? Most of us like to side with the former, and why wouldn’t we. If you look at the stats, you’d see that:

1.     83% of organizations think that it is vital to groom leaders at all levels.

2.     58% of organizations top priority is closing leadership skill gaps.

The above stats point at the fact that a major chunk of corporate investment is going into leadership development. Yet 71% organizations are unsure if their leaders are capable of leading their organizations into the future.

Are You Really a Leader?

Most of us think that having a position of authority automatically makes us a leader. Just because you have a number of employees working under you, does not mean that you are their leader. It just means that you manage them.

To state the obvious: A leader is someone that drives his employees to “follow” him. While a manager is someone that makes the employees “work” for him.

I hundred percent second Travis Bradberry on his statement, “You’re not a leader just because you have people reporting to you. And you don’t suddenly become a leader once you reach a certain pay grade.”

However, just because you did not take onto this position as a leader does not mean that you can’t make the most out of it by grooming yourself as one! Ask yourself today: “How do I score in the Leadership Litmus Test?”

Begin this positive journey by asking you these questions one by one.

Are You Aware of Your Behavior?

A leader is someone people look up to. To be a leader you need to be self-aware. Why? Because, you’re a role model for your employees. Ever heard of the statement, “With great power comes great responsibility”? Well, now that you have followers, you have to be responsible with your actions and behaviors.

You have to be alert and perceptive at all times. Remember, the way you behave as an individual has the power to move people to want to replicate the same.   

You could be sitting at your home or working tirelessly in the office, your employees will still look at you as a role model. So ask yourself again and again:  “Am I doing the right thing?”

Before you expect a certain change in the behavior of your employees, make sure to bring that change first in your own behavior. Per se, if you want for your employees to be there at the office by 9AM sharp, make sure you come on time yourself, or maybe even 15 minutes earlier, so you can see who the early comers are.

Understand that your self-awareness will not just help you manage people to perform well in taking out their daily tasks but in fact, instill a wonderful drive in them that will make them want to change their behavior or maybe adapt to your particular working style.

The more impactful thing here is that you are driving people to alter their behavior to aim higher, broaden their horizons and tirelessly push their limits to achieve more.

Are You Positive to Your Core?

More often than not, I come across people that put too much time asking themselves “what could have been”. I tell such people that what’s done is done, let your past be your past and once you have learnt from it, focus on what’s going to be.

And then there are the ‘cry-babies’ – they keep highlighting the problems, but so seldom do I find them coming up with the solutions for those problems. It’s not difficult to be pointing fingers at what’s wrong, what’s actually tough is to come up with a viable solution to get ride of that issue.

If you ask me, I’d say that a true leader is the one with the ability to see the positive in everything. That might sound impracticable at first. But if you have met the real leaders, you’d know that they know how to find the silver lining to every grey cloud.

If you train yourself to learn from your past mistakes, understand the loopholes and create your own opportunities, and are able to inspire people to walk the walk of optimism with you – I promise you, you will pass the leadership litmus test with flying colors.

Are You Generous and Selfless?

No I’m not asking if you’re charitable. Don’t mistake this Leadership Litmus Test to be about your benevolence. This is, in fact, a test that will assess your ability to share your knowledge and vision.

You must know when you should withdraw yourself from your team and stop hovering around, so the environment evolves without your participation. You must be ready to embrace good suggestions and novice ideas from your team. This is the sort of test that will help you notice whether or not you are gunning for self-glorification.

Trust me, you will win an immense amount of respect and credibility from your team, if you remain selfless as a leader.

You know that you have achieved the level of self-actualization when you are more concerned about the bigger picture than your own personal and professional development alone.

It’s surely a win-win. As your team wins, your organization wins and so, you win as a leader.

But that’s not your core purpose, ‘to be able to win’. Your core purpose is to help people achieve their purpose.

Bottom Line

If while reading this article you felt like you have already inculcated all these attributes in your personality. Then you have passed this Leadership Litmus Test as well.

I’m sure this Leadership Litmus Test will suggest some of you that you’re on the right track to becoming an amazing leader that has the right attributes and traits that actually define a good leader. I also know that some of you would feel that you have a long way to go.

But one thing is for sure – you can decide to be a leader at any point in life. These skills are learnable and once you decide to walk this road, I’m sure you will start seeing results sooner than later if you let The Leadership Litmus Test help you along the way.

Learn how you can take your leadership teams through a growth model which will help them mature on a personal and professional level by following me on LinkedIn and subscribing to the Keijzer Community.

Paul Keijzer is the CEO and Founder of Engage Consulting and the co-Founder of The Talent Games, which aims to transform HR by digitising talent processes and creating more engaging and productive workplaces through gamification and mobile technology. As a global HR and Leadership Management expert, Paul knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.