A military strategist identifies eight qualities that define great generals: robustness, courage, the ability to judge character, courtesy, energy, the power to inspire confidence, broad knowledge, and imagination. He argues that character sustains confidence longer than talent alone, and that real leadership comes from caring for people, not money.
Hey, how you doing? I've just been reading a great book on leadership, on generals, the lives of generals. And I've just got just half a dozen, maybe 8 qualities that I found when I was going through this thing, the qualities or attitudes of great leadership. And I'm not going to talk a lot about attitude today because it's fundamental, absolutely fundamental. But I want to spend a little bit of time on that later on. But here are just 8 things that I've found. Number 1, qualities of great military generals. The first thing is robustness. They had the ability to be able to stand the shocks of war. There was something in them that they could stand up and face it regardless of what was happening around them. Number 2 is they possess great courage, both physical and moral courage. Number 3, they had an ability to be able to judge character, look at the hearts of someone, know what's going on in their lives and Be able to take it from there. Number 4 is they were courteous. And that's a very interesting quality that you read through great men, great women, is they are courteous. You know, gentlemen, I think it was Gone with the Wind, a definition of gentleman was the ability to make someone else feel comfortable. And that struck me as a young man. I thought, you know what, that is just so true because that's the quality that you want to be around when you're around those people, the ability to make someone else feel comfortable. Number next, embodiment of energy and drive. In other words, they've got get up and go. An ability to arouse and retain confidence. Now, there's a difference between the ability to arouse confidence and retain confidence. Your talent will take you places that your character can't sustain you. Talent will arouse the confidence, but character will retain the confidence. It'll keep people going and keep tracking with you. A large body of personal and professional knowledge. Leaders are readers. You have to constantly be reading if you want to constantly be leading. Imaginative. Cultivating a sense of presence and charisma. Developing a power to communicate. A high degree of interest in and real knowledge about The people they're working with. You have to love people to lead people. Some people want to get into leadership because it's got a bigger paycheck attached to it, but you have to love people to lead people. If you really want to take people to where they've never gone before, you have to love them. And I'm not talking about some sort of sappy tree-hugging loving. I'm talking about just having a genuine passion, interest, and concern. To help people fulfill their dreams and desires in the pursuit of the collective. It's always what it's about, folks. It's always about facilitating someone else's dream. Have a great day. Thank you.
