Leadership is about making the right decisions at the right time. It means unraveling the problems in a dynamic and proactive manner. It epitomizes falling down and getting up, and getting up with more vigor and greater desire to succeed. Leadership represents an ability not to react or get caught up in one's own or other people's negative emotions such as anger, impatience, negative judgments and anxiety.

Leaders create meaning out of events and relationships that wreck non leaders. Even in difficult times, leaders do not see themselves perplexed. They are able to breakdown the situation into small events. One of the pivotal contrasts between leaders and non leaders is the skillfulness of leaders to transform the problems in their lives into something that serves them or adds a valuable experience. For leaders, adversity is in fact a blessing in disguise. The value of the learning they get is realized over a period of time.

The hallmarks of leadership are doing something different and believing in what you are doing. The defining moments include setting personal and professional goals, developing an effective communication strategy and committing themselves and their people to the goals. They seek to find the true needs in society and let the vision arise from that. Leaders are not encumbered by ideas, rules and procedures, but look at what is needed. Even more importantly, they are able to move down the road after the event with a clear mind and an appropriate decision.

True leaders carry their missions in their hearts. For leaders it is not the external rules that makes them a winner. The leaders set their own benchmarks. Being a leader also means having a higher adaptive capacity. The ability to process new knowledge, to find meaning and to integrate them into one's life, is one of the real skills of leaders.

The characteristics which distinguish a leader from a non leader are attributes like taking initiative, bearing responsibility, persuasiveness, drive to excel, goal-directedness, and proficiency in taking charge and seeing that the task gets accomplished. Most leaders are excellent communicators and have a "vision of the future." They are passionate by their vision and the glimmer comes not just from them but also from everyone who shares the same dream.

Leaders are forever young. Forever young in business acumen is all about inquisitiveness, optimism, liveliness, excitement, zeal, heroism, energy, willingness to take risk, quest for knowledge and doing something different. It is the state of applying ideas to reality, reality to success. Challenging the unknown and biting the bullet makes the odds work in your favor. Leadership is about moving mountains with one's determination.

In the end, it can be said that leadership is like a piece of spaghetti by "leading from the front." If you take a piece of spaghetti and push it from behind, it goes nowhere. There is no direction. However, if you pull it from the front, it follows you no matter which way you pull it. In this same way, leadership cannot be forced from behind. Leadership is about setting examples, leading from the front, and showing direction to the world with a vision for the future.

About the Author
Robin Trehan is Managing Director and Vice President at CBK Family & National Hotel Exchange. He is an expert in the field of dynamic strategic planning and e-business. Contact Robin at robin@nationalhotelexchange.com.