A leader is someone who knows how to serve, who knows how to make a team work in harmony, in order to achieve the best results within what he proposes.

To lead is to influence the way of thinking and the behavior of other people. It's collaborating so that an ordinary person has unusual results, it's extracting the best from each one.

To exercise leadership, I usually use ten fundamental concepts, ten points of attention, which I never lose sight of. These are points that give me a direction and help me to always assess how my performance as a leader is going.

These 10 principles are like a compass that point me to the path of leadership, that help me to understand if my performance is being efficient – ​​to adjust my actions and get back on the right path, whenever necessary.

The 10 leadership principles that I use in my daily life and teach the people and leaders who walk with me are:

1. Leading by Example – I often say that example is not the best way to teach, it's the only one! Practice what you say and say. Set an example so that others can follow me.

2. Knowing how to give Feedback – the leader needs to master the art of giving feedback to adjust the functioning of his team and correct any deviations that may be occurring, but respecting 3 fundamental points:

A. The. Correct without offending and guide without humiliating;

B. Recognize in public and correct in private;

C. Lead by admiration and not fear;

3. Recognize the merits – Every leader needs to know how to recognize the merits of his team members.

But it has to be in the right measure. Well dosed leads to progress, while excessive recognition or in people with high ego, has the opposite effect, leading to egocentrism, which is also not good!

The great wisdom of team life is that the leader knows how to find the middle ground between the two extremes.

4. Be an assiduous listener – The ability to listen, to always speak last, to listen to everyone first before giving your opinion, is, at the very least, a great advantage. When I speak last, I have the benefit of listening to everyone around me and rethinking my own ideas.

So sometimes I can change my mind or listen to what everyone says. Or even to put it another way, because the opinion of others changed my view a little.

It's like seeing everyone else's card game before seeing my own game.

5. Knowing how to make decisions – A true leader takes responsibility for deciding and takes the consequences for the decisions he makes.

A leader doesn't always make the best decisions. But he doesn't run away from them. A leader may even fail to decide, but he does not let others decide for him, nor does he abandon a decision.

6. Always take responsibility – A true leader, as soon as he realizes he has made a mistake, quickly recognizes that he made a mistake, reducing the time to correct what went wrong.

Recognize the mistake as soon as possible and apologize easily, because apologizing is an act of nobility and not an act of incompetence or incapacity. This attracts respect, competence and trust.

7. Knowing how to ask for help when needed – Everyone needs help at some point. Asking for help is no sign of weakness, in fact it is a sign of great nobility and humility, to assume that you are in need of support.

8. Resolve conflicts and neutralize confrontations – The leader is a great mediator of conflicts, so that people do not lose the unity of their goals, and is always a neutralizer of conflicts to eliminate any type of discord and clash.

There is a difference between conflict and confrontation. Conflict is when two people disagree, but both want to come to a solution. Confrontation is when one party wants to cancel the other.

Conflict always generates evolution, conflict generates war.

The leader has to be the mediator who will help to resolve conflicts and defuse confrontations.

9. Align everyone's interests in the same objective – The leader respects the individuality of the dreams and ambitions of each team member. But it is able to integrate everyone in the same objective.

He makes everyone's dreams come true, no matter if people, individually, want different things.

The leader is a person who unites everyone on the same road, because he knows that together they go further. And, regardless of what each individual wants to find along the way, it is necessary to respect, value and align interests.

A true leader unites the team in a unique effort, while always respecting the dream of each one, because he knows that every individual dream is important, and must always be protected and respected.

10. Being the great master of emotions – The leader must know how to listen and recognize a predominant emotion in a person and balance their emotions. When a person is overly afraid, the leader increases his confidence. For those who are too anxious it encourages serenity. The leader is always a great conductor, who helps to govern and balance emotions.

A real leader can bring people together around the same goal and organize their efforts so that everyone achieves their goals and fulfills their dreams.

When powerful people get together to move in the same direction, extraordinary things happen. You will go further if you have people who have the same purposes as yours by your side.

When these people help each other, their strengths are added and they achieve synergy. And the result will always be greater than the simple sum of the individual results. It's that old adage of putting 1+1 together and getting 11 as a result and not just 2.

To have good and committed people by your side and keep them motivated and fight for the cause you defend, it is necessary to become a leader. It is necessary that you become an expert in people, to deal with and lead the team to the goals you have set.