My Leadership Qualities

Leadership skills are listed often on the first place among the qualities of the good manager. To be a leader, you have to want to be one because the beginning comes from willingness and readiness. We only have two options in our life, influence others or let others to influence us.

What does it mean to be a leader? Is it difficult to distinguish between great and good leader? Is it difficult to become a leader?

Speaking of the leader we think about the boss, manager, someone that is leading us through our professional carrier, but actually we meet leaders in our personal live and we always ask a question – what makes a leader?

When children grew up they always say: I want to be like you! They actively listen what we say, they learn every

I become a leader for my team members. During this time I saw how important for my colleagues to have someone that takes decisions, that can take a risk and can control emotions. I remember a game in the Polish cup years ago. My team played against favourites in the semi final. Before the match I said to my colleagues that we are better, because there is a team spirit, there is a passion for all we are doing together and nobody believes that we can win. We won the cup for such a small club and since then my journey with Polish National Hockey team began. I have developed my self-management skills and therefore it’s easier for me to work with people in my company now. Empathy and social skill are the other two components of emotional intelligence and they are linked to managing relationships. My company is facing difficult time with some of the products transferred to Asia. People are not sure about our future but at the same time there is a great opportunity as we are in process of merging with giant company creating volume increasing in all our plants. It’s normal that there is a fear because employees have families, mortgages and we all need stabilisation. In the past we used to have a general

Narcissistic leaders are considered as good leaders however they are not. They often quickly climb the career ladder. This is because their self-confidence and leadership are generally believed to be the qualities of a good leader. A great example of the narcissistic leader is one of the best soccer players – Christiano Ronaldo. Some supporters love him because of the commitment to the team. His team mates are happy that he is on their side in important games. But it’s not that great when something does not go the way he wants. He behaves badly, offends his colleagues and is board by common and easy activities. Michael Maccoby described narcissistic leaders as people that “often say that they want teamwork. What that means in practise is that they want a group of yes-men.” (Maccoby, 2000) Leaders of a healthy narcissistic personality have the ability to adapt to the requirements of reality, are prone to self-reflection and open to criticism. They are able to look at their actions with a distance and to keep humour in pursuit of their goals. They also help them be courageous in taking action under time pressure and in stressful situations. In contrast, leaders with an unhealthy narcissistic personality do not tolerate criticism, they only want admiration and praise from all sides. Their main activities are to help achieve success, but only for their own glory. Narcissistic leaders often achieve above-average success in