CAPIR

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  • 1. Participation
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Library Modules 7 - Leadership

About Leadership

Leadership is the process of influencing people to confront and embrace change and to master life's difficult challenges. Australians tend to confuse leadership with management - both are important and necessary. Leadership's major focus is on generating and directing people's energy; management's focus is on developing systems for control and coordination.

Acting like a leader

Leaders operate strategically by:

• being able to inspire a sense of purpose and direction towards achieving their community's aspirations
• having a 'big picture' perspective which takes into account what is happening in the world outside their immediate community
• having ideas of what possible opportunities might be out there in the long term
• being able to acquire knowledge and information which can be used to exploit opportunities for their community's benefit

Leaders achieve results by:

• being able to build community capability and responsiveness to harness opportunities as they arise
• steering and implementing change and being able to deal with uncertainty
• making sure that projects are completed and deliver on promised results.

Leaders cultivate productive working relationships by:

• building strong networks of relationships with people within and from outside their community
• emphasising cooperation and partnership approaches
• recognising that innovation often springs from diversity and respecting the individuality and uniqueness of others
• guiding, mentoring and developing others so that they can make significant contributions to their community.

Leaders demonstrate personal drive and integrity by:

• behaving ethically, according to respected and shared values
• showing personal commitment to their community by supporting it and being loyal
• engaging with risk and showing personal courage
• committing themselves to action and helping others to act despite apparent obstacles
• being resilient and bouncing back after setbacks
• demonstrating self-awareness and a commitment to personal development by accurate self-evaluation and constantly learning to improve.

Leaders communicate persuasively by:

• listening, understanding and adapting to their audience
• communicating so that they are understood
• learning to negotiate effectively.

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Developing leadership skills

You can start to learn more about leadership by:

• modelling yourself on other leaders
• being coached and mentored
• attending leadership development programs
• putting yourself in challenging new situations
• developing greater self-awareness by asking for feedback from others about your leadership behaviours.

Leadership covers a large range of skills and personal attributes and most people tend to have a mix of leadership strengths and areas for improvement.

We suggest that you identify some areas that you wish to work on and then discuss them with people who are already high performers in these areas.

Related reading

'Building Rural Leaders Fact Sheet'. Department of Primary Industries.

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