Sync

What makes a good leader?

People have lots of different ideas about what makes a good leader.

Mark Wright, Sync’s leadership expert says that leadership is not about being the top of an organisation and running it. It’s not about a job, or about being paid lots of money. We don’t have to be awake all hours and travel far and wide to be a leader.

Philip Patston says - you can be a leader from your sofa! You can read what Philip says by following the link below.

Click here to read 'The remote control of leadership'

Leading is what you do, not your job title

Mark Wright is an expert on leaders and leading

He has written about what he thinks makes ‘a good leader’.

Mark says that for him, being a leader is like being in the arms of a good kisser - about how that feels. It’s not about being a kissing professional though or thinking you are!

Mark also says that many people think that a leader is the person in charge, but you can be a leader without having a (big job title) to run the show!

We can all lead. It doesn’t matter what we do as a job. We can lead, even if we don’t do paid work! What matters is how a person behaves and what it feels like to be around them, not about how good they are at being ‘the boss’.

Remember, some leaders lead lots of people and some leaders only lead a few people. The number of people isn’t important.

We all have chances to make people feel really good, speak up, see things differently and change things. This can be ‘leading’ too.

So, being a good leader is about making a difference to the people around you because of how you make people feel.

What have other people said?

We've asked everyone involved with Sync about what they think makes a good leader. They have said:

A good leader gets people going, by ‘lighting a fire' in their imagination and giving them confidence so they feel they can succeed and also feel in control.

Being a leader means that you have to have some very different skills, you have to be sure of yourself and show it, but also it doesn’t always work if you are a big show off.

Sometimes you forget someone is a leader because they share out the power so everyone feels powerful.

Everyone does leading at some time, it’s part of being alive.

Andy Kee, a learning disabled artist, says:

I think my idea of a leader is to communicate well and really, really listen to other people’s ideas and point them, steer them in to seeing themselves more clearly , so that is why I choose to look comfortable. If I wore a suit I think people would think that I was part of the system……..