What Makes a Good Leader?

By Marcy Feagans, red belt

Good leaders are willing to share their knowledge and experiences to help teach and guide others to greatness.  Leaders help others to learn by sharing their own knowledge and assisting others in their own personal development to better themselves. Good leaders possess qualities such as integrity, honesty, trustworthiness, patience and compassion.

It is important that as a leader the people around you consider you to have high integrity, always going to do the “right” thing and having high morals and values.  It is important to be honest, the followers will be loyal to the leader if they feel that they can trust someone, regardless of the situation – be it good or bad,  an easy or tough situation, but you will always know that you are telling the truth.  Along with honesty, goes trustworthiness because being honest will win over the followers trust, if they trust you then they will be loyal, try to achieve goals they did not think possible and follow direction because they are confident in the leader’s skills and leadership.

When teaching others, a key attribute is patience.  When teaching a new student or protégé it is important to have patience as that takes time and energy.  The student may need to repeat the action over and over again to learn a skill or as the teacher you may need to repeat the instruction or demonstrate the action to assist the student with learning.  Finally, leaders need to have compassion, all people are human and make mistakes, students often feel frustration and the compassion to understand people as people will help to ensure the best experience and learning for both the teacher and student.

Good leaders are leaders in every aspect of their life; at home, work/school, sports teams and in your community.  The qualities of a good leader will follow them in every aspect of their life – it is usually an innate part of one’s life to have high moral qualities and to show those qualities throughout your actions all the time, regardless if it is at school/work, at the taekwondo campus or at home with your family.  For example, while at work you lead as a good example in your sales integrity or providing good quality service, doing what is right for the customer always.  Being a role model while attending or leading a taekwondo class is important as you should be available during and after class doing poomse, willing to answer questions, and helping lower belts through skill practice.

In your community, you should be friendly and considerate of your neighbors such as, helping them rake leaves, pick up the trash can that blew across the road, or simply waving to them as you pass in the car which shows concern and passion to help take care of the people  and neighborhood around you.  It seems like such a simply gesture but a friendly wave to your neighbor or the UPS delivery man means so much to create a pleasant environment to live in.  If you enjoy the walk down the street or the time people take to say “hello” or care about your family vacation or recent illness it can make all the difference in the world.