Leadership is credibility. Credibility means people believe you’ll do what you say you’ll do. Doing what you’ll say you’ll do means people will trust you.
You can’t lead people without trust. You can’t lead people without having a place to lead them. You can’t lead people without telling them where you’re going.
That’s leadership.
Of course, if you have consistently bad ideas, nobody will follow you either. It helps if you have the sort of charisma necessary to excite people, to get them to buy into causes or concepts in a way that makes them feel as if it was their idea all along.
Leadership can be a bad thing, if you use it to take advantage of people or lead them to do bad things. But by itself, leadership isn’t good or bad: it’s a tool to move people and events in a given direction, for good or ill.
To become a strong leader, begin by telling people that you’re going to do a particular thing. Do it. Repeat.
Build credibility over time. Get a reputation for being the sort of person who can be trusted, and who has a history of getting a particular kind of result. You don’t always have to succeed, but when you fail, own up to it and be open to why it happened. Improve.
Relatively simple, but the kind of thing that takes a long, long time to master. No shortcuts.
well said