Many people believe that managing and leading are exactly the same thing, but we are talking about 2 completely different methods. While managers manage, control or balance, a leader deals with the potentials and needs of people. If a manager calculates the personnel costs and thus sees his employees as a cost factor, a manager considers them an investment.

Natural leadership quality does not mean that you either have it or not. It means that you are willing to evaluate your own style, behavior and personality and that you are willing to learn and grow within the leadership process. Leader must constantly open to new ways of thinking, new techniques and new skills. The following Top 10 should put this in a nutshell:

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1. The only person you can change is yourself

Self-management and self-reflection are absolute prerequisites on the way to becoming a natural leader. Only when you know yourself well, can you really take care of other people 100%. Knowing the effects of your own behaviour is of crucial importance for leadership.

2. One must feel comfortable in the leader’s role

Leadership requires authenticity. Only if you feel 100% confirmed in the leader’s role, your employees will feel the same and will reveal 100% of their abilities to you.

3. As a natural leader you lead according to the situation

This means that you always adapt your management style to the commitment and competence of your employees. Choosing the right management style means finding the right mix of people and tasks and requires skill, flexibility and intuition.

4. Good managers constantly develop new managers

Today’s top leaders share their skills, insights and strengths to develop other people who have the potential to lead. This also includes giving these people the opportunity to lead. Someone once said that leadership is like fertilizer. If it is lying in a pile, it stinks and does nothing. But if you spread it evenly over fertile soil, it promotes growth, and plants begin to blossom.

5. As a manager, you must ensure that the flow of information is always free in all directions

The transmission and circulation of information is one of the most important rules of all. If information is withheld by certain people to strengthen their own position or power, this must be stopped immediately.

6. As a good leader you have to be accessible at all times

Create a corporate culture where people feel that they can turn to you at any time. Whether with bad or good news. Don’t isolate yourself or make people feel that they can only turn to you at certain times or with specific concerns.

7. Leadership also means to hold back in some situations

You don’t have to plan every step, control every action and know about every little detail. Sometimes you have to let go. It’s a sign of trust. Find good people who understand and share your vision and then let them work.

8. Good leaders seek and promote the potential of others

Discover the potential of people. Every minute you spend on it is an investment. Become a sponsor for someone else and support their ideas or projects. Provide the resources and structure that others need to be successful.

9. A good manager promotes risk taking and tolerates mistakes

In today’s world, constantly relying on security is the riskiest of all strategies.

10. Leadership qualities can be developed

Of course, not being born with something does not mean being born with something. Leadership techniques can be learned, and this act of learning takes us back to point 1 (self-management), thus closing the natural leadership cycle.