I am that person who reads a lot about leadership and how famous leaders went through hard times to shape their personalities and reach success after years of work and commitment. But with the new trend of "the leadership industry" where plenty of trainings and programs are targeting youth and take them into dreaming of becoming influential persons in their communities, I think that we are producing sort of fake leaders.
I once read that leadership comes from practicing it and not reading about it, and I believe in this. You can't just participate in a program or a training and you proclaim yourself "a leader". In fact, I think that people should not call themselves leaders. Leader is an outsider judgement that your surrounding and the world are able to judge if you’re truly a leader for them. A leader can't take ready lessons or listen to lectures and talks and feel that's OK. It should comes out of experiencing failure, disappointment, how to live with empathy, how to take tough decisions and assume the consequences, embracing change with all its challenges, and most of all considering human relations with both rationality and emotions.
One of the qualities of true leaders for me and that's what I'm trying to apply in my daily work and life, is that you should lift people and support them to succeed. To be a "Sherpa"*, and be that person that you needed most in your life to upraise and climb to the summit.
I think also that leadership comes with different models. If you look to the great leaders across the history, you'll find out that each one of them had a specific aspect of personality that helped them achieve things and inspire others. So I believe that with time, one can develop their own model of leadership. I can't see why we should stick to those ready recipes or listings.
Finally, there's an essential quality that I consider from now on after many disappointments: a leader should be authentic and fair. A leader should tell authentic stories, not pretending to be a hero, be humble, accept criticism and look always for the truth. It's not a full pretty crafted package, it's a long process of learning and development. There's also what I call "inner leader cells" in some people, and that's why you can't "make" leaders from the scratch, until they have those "cells".
* Sherpas are local people who are highly skilled and experienced climbers who live in the higher parts of the Himalayas. They are paid to do things such as prepare the route for foreign climbers to follow, fix ropes in place, and carry the necessary climbing kit up the mountain. Climbing Everest is tough and being a Sherpa is a really risky job.
