5L Principles of Leadership

LIVE, LOVE, LEAD, LEARN, LEAVE A LEGACY

Today we hear the term “leader” in the media, something we must learn and become, a leader in your organization, leader within your family, leader in your community, but what does being a leader mean? let's first talk about its origin, the word "leader" finds its origin in the particle "lid", originally meaning in the Latin language: dispute, complaint or process. This meaning places the leader as someone who has an active stance, someone who wants to change some of their immediate surroundings.

That reminds me of a quote I read in a book, "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." The word Leader alone sounds very sexy and tempting. Who does not want to become a leader? It gives us a feeling of power towards others, many times this figure grants authority. However, this also entails certain responsibilities which we must bear in mind. Furthermore, it also puts us in a position of vulnerability since what you do will be seen by the people around you.

To serve as a leader, we must consider certain principles, these are like the rudder on a ship, the guide that will help us not lose our goals towards what we want to achieve. These can change from person to person, my 5 principles are "Live, Love, Lead, Learn, Leave a Legacy ..."

Live: Simply enjoy life, many of us including me care so much about trivial things, we live today in a world where it is more important to post the photo of my vacation on my social networks than to enjoy being on vacation in that wonderful place, I share an interesting fact, a number of studies have found that the longer people are on social networks, the more depressed they become, for the simple fact that I compare your “Perfect” life on Facebook with my real life, and the reality is that we are selective in the things we post, we usually project an image of our lives that is not entirely true.

Love: I share the following words that John Ortberg wrote on his book “I´d like you more If you were more like me”: “Though I tweet like Justin Bieber and have more Facebook friends than the pope; though I get a BA from Cal and an MBA from Stanford; though I invented Snapchat and Uber; though I have great hair and white teeth and low body fat; though I solve global warming, set philanthropic records, and drive a Hummer that runs on compost if I don’t have love, I have nothing ”Or as someone else stated:

Everything - Love = nothing.

Lead: For me, leading means serving others, there are hundreds of ways you can do it, the important thing is to do it from your area of expertise in my opinion. Being a language teacher means guiding through education and motivation, I am not so sure how much I motivate my students though, however, it is very easy as a student to forget why I am here in the classroom, therefore, My job is not only to teach a language but also to motivate them, to remind them from time to time why they started. What does leadership mean to you?

Learn: Peter C Brown author of the book "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" defines it as The acquisition of knowledge and skills, so that they are available in memory and can make sense of problems and future opportunities. It is not possible to move forward if we are not constantly learning, who thinks that finishing a career is having enough knowledge is in a serious problem, how many books do you read per year ?, when you are online, How much of what you read or see is educational? I don't think that seeing a video of a cat that falls off the table helps your personal and professional growth a lot. We should always seek to learn something new every day, only then can we reach our goals or as Leonard Lauder says, "If you don't learn something new every day, it's a lost day."

Leave a Legacy: What´s the point of living, if you won´t leave a legacy? and when I refer to this term it does not mean becoming an Albert Einstein. Let's start with something simple like doing it for your loved ones. What is the first thing you do every day before getting up? Surely check your cell phone and see how many notifications you have; I know it is something that many of us share. However, it shouldn't be that way. What is the engine that motivates you every day? In my case, my daughter, she is my biggest reminder of why I do things and more importantly how I perform them. Try to seek excellence in everything you do and if you don't have enough motivation to do it, just think about what you love the most, your children, parents, siblings, spouse. Do it for them, leave them a legacy, something they are proud of when you are no longer here on earth.