Some thoughts on leadership greatness

1. 2010
MTN South Africa
Nomalanga Nkosi
LEADERSHIP GREATNESS
“Personal leadership is the self-confident ability to crystallise your thinking so that you
are able to establish an exact direction for your life, to commit yourself to moving in that
direction, and then to take determined action to acquire, accomplish or become what
your goal demands.” – PJ Meyers.

2. The most consistent attributes of people who move towards greatness in different
contexts of leadership is a high level of self-awareness, setting and pursuing goals and
the effective management of time. Hence, three things that can contribute significantly
to the development and enhancement of one’s personal leadership competence include
doing a realistic self-evaluation and assessment of one’s strengths, weaknesses,
passions and desires; taking time to set meaningful and significant goals that drawsone
to a particular direction and causesone to take determined action to achieve what one
desires and articulating one’s goals in a way that inspires one and reminds one of what
you have committed to.
Developing leadership greatnessoccurs in three levels. First, one has to learn to lead oneself, and
then one should develop the ability to lead in an interpersonal context in order to have
the foundation to lead larger groups of people. Emotional intelligence is the foundation to
great leadership and has five different areas; three of them focus on the leadership of
self: self-awareness; self-regulation and personal motivation, and two focus on the
interpersonal relationships: empathy and social skill. The secret to greatness, according
to Geoffrey Colvin, the author of the article “What it takes to be great” (Oct: 2006) is in
painful and demanding practice and hard work. The lure of greatness is something that
is powerful, inspiring and appealing to many. Greatness defined embodies moving from
success to significance as greatness in itself is relative. Business leaders start off by
dreaming of success: leading a company, creating significant wealth, being recognised
and respected for one’s achievements. Business success is largely associated with
creating wealth and value. Significance moves past just the creation of wealth into the
domain of making a real difference, of impacting people's lives in a positive way and
leaving a lasting legacy.The change that is created by great business leaders lasts much
longer than their time at the helm of an organisation. As greatness is associated with
changeso you may be pondering, what is the greatness criterion? Great business
leaders tend to ignite and share passion, touch lives, develop people and enable others
to perform past what would otherwise have been possible. Thus, being classified as a
great business leader is far more complex than just money or meting the financial
metrics set.
Passion is contagious and if you're passionate about what you do, other people are
drawn in and willing to do things they would otherwise not have done. Passion provides
energy and energy enables action. Passion and business success are integral, they have
a symbiotic relationship.People want to learn and grow; great leaders enable and
encourage others to never stop learning and to keep growing.Theyact as role models,
mentors, teachers and motivators for others. They touch and influence people in unique
ways, often without realising it. Similarly, great leaders always create. Whether it is a
philosophy or a new way of doing things. They just add zeal.
Developing interpersonal leadership is about developing richer, deeper relationships in
which one can get honest feedback and learn to trust and draw on the support of others.
You will be hard-pressed to find a leader with integrity who does not attribute much of
their success to working closely with individuals whom they trust. Leadership greatness
is alsocharacterisedby listeningmore and talking less, constantly asking for feedback and
be open and forthcoming in providing feedback to others as well as making and keeping
promises. Promises that are kept build trust, and trust is the basis of powerful
interpersonal relationships. A promise made and kept is a massive investment in an

3. important relationship, but a promise broken is a huge withdrawal that takes much time
and effort to recover. Greatness as a business leader is about making the decision that
you want to be great, being bold enough to move past the things that you are just good
at, being disciplined enough to continually invest in yourself and others to build
behaviour and competence that leads to greatness and, finally, to carry on in spite of the
challenges and obstacles that life may throw at you.