Who is this guy – leader? What does he do? Do we need him at all? There are many people who think that they can do everything without their leaders, that they are capable to do the job themselves. Well, surely it depends on a leader, but there should always be someone who will make decisions and lead, otherwise it will be a chaos. There should be a person who knows the goal, defines the path to get to the goal and leads their people towards it.
Google dictionary gives this definition of the word leader, among others: “the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country”. There is no information there about the education, background or papers that a person has to obtain to become a leader. Diploma is something that one can use to prove the ability to lead initially, but then there will be a hard work to prove it by doing the job and leading people.
During my not-so-long professional experience, just around 14 years, I have already witnessed several types of leaders – with and without diplomas, school-smarts and street-smarts; leaders who changed their industry and became very successful in an unexpected area; I also met some people who were appointed to lead, but were not capable of doing that. The one thing that I figured from meeting all those leaders was – successful leader knows their industry, their company and their product or service; they make thoughtful decisions and take responsibility. In my opinion this is the type of leader we all need to become. Diploma doesn’t help by itself, what helps is knowledge that you get from your teachers as well as network that you get from your school. Use your teachers to learn as much as you can, because you never know what will be useful in the future. You will always have teachers around you, not only at school. Choose the right teachers to learn from, your present and future depend on your choice!
