Almost everyone wants to grow, everyone wants to be successful. In an ideal world people like to live their personal values. They would like to be truthful and honest in all the dealings. They would like to work hard, they want to do the “right thing.” Unfortunately, most people don’t.

Why People Don’t Live Their Personal Values

Although everyone would like to have great values, most people don’t live them because of following reasons:

1. Sacrifice

People want to be called for having great values but they do not want to sacrifice their comfort. If you want to live your core values, be prepared for some pain. If you decide to be honest, it is not going to be a smooth and steady road. Whenever you are honest and speak the truth, there will be some inconvenience for you and maybe for those you are dealing with.

2. Someone Else’s Values

If you want to be the “best-in-class” athlete because someone else wants you to be that, I am afraid that is not going to happen, unless you decide that you want to be the best-in-class. Fulfilling someone else’s wishes are not going to help you to live your values. Find your personal values and stop living someone else’s life.

These are the two main reasons why people don’t live their personal values. What are some of the other reasons you have seen? Why do people stray away from their core values? Tell us in the comments.

How to Live Your Personal Values

How do you start living your own personal values? Well the key is really simple. Don’t do what other people do.

1. First, Stop Living Someone Else’s Values

The first thing you need to do is stop living someone else’s values. Your friend wants to be a hero, but you don’t have to. Your best friend wants to be fearless enough to jump from a plane, you don’t have to. Your mom wants you to become excellent in painting, but you are more interested in music. Stop living values that are important to someone else.

2. Now Find Your Values

The next thing after you stop living other people’s values is to find your values. By finding your own you know what is important in your life and what are things that are near your heart. Start living your personal values by discovering your personal values.

3. Be Prepared

Prepare yourself and understand that there will be some things that you will have to let go. To become a better person, it will be important to have strong values. Once you have identified your values, develop and build your personal values. Keep in mind that this is a road where you will encounter desire to take shortcuts, you will want to do the easy things. Bur remember once you take that path, there is no coming back. If you really want to have strong personal values, do not take the shortcut no matter how attractive it may seem for short term.

What tricks do you use for living your personal values? What challenges do you encounter and how do you fight them?

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What are the characteristics of a good leader? Where should you start if you want to be a good leader? What are the most important qualities of a good leader? In fact, what are the 10 most essential characteristics without which a person cannot become a good leader?

This post will answer all these questions.

 

The 10 Essential Characteristics of Good Leader

So what are those characteristics or qualities? Below are the 10 characteristics that are absolutely necessary for being a good leader.

1. Character

The first thing a good leader needs is a strong character. We all know of someone who is in a leadership position or is a leader with not so strong character, and we all know how these people end up. These leaders with not-so-strong characters, often go down as fast as they climbed the ladder of success. Therefore, to be a good and sustainable leader character is the most important quality you need.

2. Communication

If a leader can not do the rest of it, she at least needs to be good at this – communication. The leadership and its implications revolve around this quality. It is an absolutely important quality a leader needs. The importance of communication can not be overemphasized for being a good leader.

3. Listening

What goes hand in hand with communication is listening. A good leader needs to listen to her followers. She needs to get feedback on a regular basis, open her eyes and ears and keep listening. Now a word of caution. Listening does not mean to blindly follow and accept everything that is said and shown.

4. Relationships

The next important quality of a good leader is building and maintaining relationships. A good leader knows the importance of relationships. She knows that the strength of a leader comes from the people that follow and support her. And that is why a good leader takes good care in building relationships.

5. Vision

Vision is important for everyone, leader or not, for their growth. But vision is specially important for those who as want to lead. Knowing what outcome you want from an assignment, a project or any task gives you authority and helps you and your team to have clear communication and well-defined expectations from each other. In past, we posted a whole series on how to develop a personal vision.

5. Passion

Passion is the fuel for your burning desires. It is this quality that differentiates between the ordinary and the extraordinary. For being a good leader, it is important to know about the subject matter of the area you want to lead in. Passion is the first step of achievement.

5. Positive Attitude

The Yes Attitude, the power of positivity. This quality is a required not just for a leader but everybody. However, this is specially necessary for a leader. A Leader needs to be positive and motivate his team, in times that are hard and times that are brutal. When times are tough and his team is absolutely down, when times are really frustrating, a leader is the who carries his team and his organization forward and that is what a leader needs to do - look at the bright side of each and everything.

8. Responsibility

Ever heard of an irresponsible leader? No? Think again and a little harder. You will see a lot of them if you look around in the politics today. A leader influences people and has a lot of power to move his team and followers. An irresponsible leader can create a disaster if he does not act responsibly.

9. Decision Making

Leaders make a lot of crucial and decisions. The ability to make good decisions is therefore essential for becoming a good leader. Decision making, the ability to make decisions, helps the leader make rights choices when there are several options and several paths to choose from.

10. Initiative

By definition a leader is someone who takes the lead or initiative in some part of life. Taking lead in the crux of being a leader and this quality is inherent in a leader.

So, here’s the list of ten qualities that a leader absolutely needs. Do you think there are some other qualities of a good leader that should be on the list? Tell us in the comments below.

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The first ever Personal Change Carnival received about 100 posts and from those posts below are my favorite 15 posts. The selection criteria was pretty straightforward. Those posts that related to personal change were shortlisted and then the posts that were submitted before the deadline were chosen. Out of this new list, each post was thoroughly reviewed and my favorite posts were listed below.

Please note that this list is my personal opinion and others may have a different opinion. If you like the posts below, please digg it, stumble it or add to bookmark on delicious.

 

1. In the post Jet Like Motivation, Axel G writes about getting motivated and determination and how it can help you in personal development. Read more about it in the article Jet-Like Motivation
2. Charles H. Green from Trusted Advisor talks about importance of trust in relationships and how to measure trust in the post Oprah and Two Trust Tests. In past we have talked about credibility and qualities for personal impact, trust is an important factor and is necessary for personal growth.
3. Growth Article talks about how the necessary components of growth. Like water, sunlight and soil, some things are absolutely necessary for growth, this post explains it in detail.
4. Emotions are Learnt Paradigms presents a wonderful article on how emotions play a role in our lives. Stacey also explains how emotions come into existence. Personally, I think understanding how emotions work is necessary for personal change and personal growth.
5. Obstacles vs. Obstuckles provides the differentiation between obstacles – the challenges in everyday life and obstuckles – when you get stuck and stop moving forward. William urges his readers to not let obstacles become obstuckles and keep moving forward.
6. How to Unlock Your Intuition touches on an uncommon topic – intuition. Jim talks about how he used intuition to find answers to his questions. I believe getting to know your intuition and using it can help you and develop your personality.
7. 4 Ways to Finding Purpose in Life talks about using introspection, environment, natural ability and inspiration to find your purpose in life. Steve has presented a good overview on how these four ways can be used. Also, read why you need a personal vision or purpose for your life.
8. Change Your Thinking to Change Yourself is an article that says it is important to change the way you think for changing yourself. Attitude definitely matter a lot and this article presents some tips on how to change your thinking.
9. 15 Valuable Lessons We Can Learn from World Champions is a unique article by Vincent. In this article, Vincent illustrates 15 winning habits of world champions and he does a very thorough job.
10. Have Fun Unleashing Your Latent Creativity asks a simple question, “How to develop a personal style of creative thinking?” In this article, Jim writes about developing creativity and using it for personal growth.
11. Public Speaking Tips – Presenting an Influential Speech will Boost Your Career Andrew talks about importance of public speaking and presents some steps to improve this skill. At Chat at the Cooler, we have talked about 9 Basic Steps to Giving a Great Presentation.
12. Become a Better You in the Car is a post about how to utilize the time in car and become a better person by listening to CDs. Kim explains how she used time in car to become a better person.
13. Three Achievement Strategies provides some strategies for achieving your goals and vision. Interesting post.
14. 10 Reasons Why Your Relationship With You Matters is a post that provides a quick list of reasons why relationship with yourself matters. This post is worth a look.
15. How You Can Make New Behaviors Into Old Habits talks about how to bring personal change by adopting new behaviors and turning them into old habits.

That is all for this edition. If you liked any of these posts, I am sure all the authors would appreciate if you could stumble the post or digg it. Perhaps you might want to save it in delicious or tweet it.

Want to submit articles to the Personal Change carnival? Submit your post for the May edition of the carnival by clicking here.

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Photo Courtesy: penner42

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