3 Leadership Laws That Will Propel You to Success
Leadership is like philosophy — it was first a way of life, fully connected with action-taking and now it became an epitome of armchair blabbering. I learned leadership lessons the hard way but then, I reflected on that experience and read books from the world’s best leaders which helped me put things into perspective.
Below are 3 leadership laws that I learned that will propel you to success.
1. Lead by example
“I’m the kind of person that when I saw a lack of African Americans in the apparel business, that was something I set out to do, and I lead by example.” — Daymond John
In 1956, while Martin Luther King was on his way to becoming the leader of the civil rights movement in the U.S., his house was brutally attacked. A bomb blew up on his front porch, destroying a part of it and breaking all the windows of the house. Dr. King was in the house with his wife, Corretta and his newborn child Yolanda.
An angry, African-American mob appeared in front of the house and an all-White police force was also there trying to calm everyone down. The situation slowly started to escalate between the mob and the police and Dr. King saw where it was leading.
It was in that specific moment of danger, just surviving a bombing in front of his house, that he went outside and addressed both groups:
“If you have weapons, take them home. If not, don’t seek them here. We can’t solve this problem with violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence.”
The crowd calmed down and dispersed after that speech. He believed non-violence to be the way forward and he was willing to lead by example, showing people that something can hurt you only if it ruins your character.
Leadership is all about showing the way, not telling people the way. We learn from behaviors and we copy what other people do, especially when those people are in a higher hierarchical position than us.
That’s why children become like their parents, why employees start behaving like their CEO’s, and why you take the outermost fork on the table when you have a formal…