Sincerity is the Key to Effective Leadership

I think one mistake that people make is looking at successful leaders of the past, whether they’re Churchill or whoever that want to think of, and say; “Oh well, it worked for them and therefore we will copy everything that person did.” That’s a problem because circumstances differ, people differ, your rivals and enemies differ. I think the biggest single thing that I’ve seen is usually a successful component of a good leader is sincerity because if you need people to follow you into something you need to know that they are really there. That if they’re not fully participating, at least they really, really believe in it.

Of course, as they say; “If you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything.” I do think that sincerity is a component, a trait, of a lot of leaders who are for real. If you’re trying to lead a project, whether it’s business or political or even within your own family, and you don’t believe in it and love it, I think it’s very hard to get people to follow you.