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What Makes A Leader?
by ANNA President JoAnne Gilmore
What
makes a leader a leader? What characteristics or traits do leaders
possess that make individuals want to follow them? Confidence, passion,
determination, the ability to articulate the course or plan of action?
You bet!
In John C. Maxwell’s book “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader”
(Maxwell, 1999), he describes 21 qualities possessed by great leaders.
The qualities include the following:
- Character - a choice rather than a talent.
- Charisma - the ability to draw people to you by thinking and showing concern for others more than yourself.
- Commitment to a vision or plan. I think of commitment as beginning with the end in mind.
- Communication - the ability to share knowledge and ideas simply.
- Competence - the ability to say it, plan it, and do it.
- Courage to do the right thing.
- Discernment or the ability to flesh things out and get to the root issues.
- Focus - the ability to focus on your strengths.
- Generosity - the ability to add value to others.
- Initiative - knowing what you want and looking for opportunities to take action.
- Listening to customers, coworkers, competitors, and mentors.
- Passion
- feeling enthusiastic about your day. We know we cannot be leaders if
we do not care passionately about what we are doing.
- Positive attitude - keeping a positive attitude determines our actions.
- Problem solving - the ability to anticipate problems and work through them.
- Relationships - leaders are driven by excellence and produce results regardless of the situation.
- Responsibility
- leaders have the ability to get the job done. They are willing to go
the extra mile, they are driven and produce regardless of the
situation.
- Security, which enables the secure leader to give power to others.
- Self-discipline, which enables the leader to develop and focus on priorities.
- Servanthood, which enables the leader to serve others and put others ahead of the leader’s own needs or agenda.
- Teachability, which enables the leader to continue to grow and learn.
- Vision - the leader starts with a vision, gathers resources, and then shares the vision with others.
New Mentorship Program Introduced
As
part of ANNA’s strategic plan to provide leadership and develop
opportunities to prepare nephrology nurses to be leaders in the
association and in the community, ANNA is introducing a new mentorship
program, entitled ANNAConnections. This program will be implemented
under the direction of the Leadership Development Committee (LDC). The
LDC will be identifying types of mentors based on areas of interest,
i.e., modality, nursing role, special interests, chapter office
interests, health policy interests, journal writing, and research to
name a few. We are using the successful model developed by the Triple
Creek Mentorship Program and will modify the program based on our
needs. This program includes an auto-matching feature, mentor
profiling, email reminders, and encouragement for mentees and mentors
plus self-paced workbooks for mentees and mentors.
Become an ANNA Leader
There are numerous volunteer leadership roles within ANNA. It is time
to feel the passion and to build on your leadership traits and become a
leader within ANNA, your workplace, and your community. Look for more
information on the exciting new ANNAConnections program in the ANNA
Update and on our website, www.annanurse.org.
JoAnne Gilmore, BSN, RN, CNN
ANNA President
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