The Leader In You

The Leader In You, this is a a motivational book that I had spent almost a year to finish reading. Actually, I was the one who keep delaying reading.

The below content are extracted from this book, to avoid myself for being accuse in committing academic offence, I am here officially to give credit to the author and associated contributors. Dear friends or visitor, below is the referencing of the book, you can get this book if you are interested:


Carnegie.D et.al, 2003, The Leader In You (How to win friends, influence people and succeed in changing world), New York, Pocket Books

Let me briefly talk about the content based on the sub title available in the book.



To be a leader, one need to find the leader in oneself by identifying own strengths. Leader should also be able to visualise what to do and give instruction to the members to make what visualised come into reality. Then effective communication is essential to built trusting relationship. Besides, to make people move and willingly work for you, leader should be able to constantly motivate her/his team members. This will build up team working spirit among the members in achieving desired task.

To add on, to have effective communication with the team, leader need to be able to express genuine interest in others. People tend to ignore this important aspect. Actually, when you expressing interest on other people, and you really becoming more interested in the people around you. People will feel good when their views or opinions are being valued by giving interest on what they said.

Put in someones shoes through seeing things from other people's point of view. Knowing what is important for other is equally important as to getting work done. This will be a "pull" for your teammates to work with you instead of keep pushing them. You may ask, how to exercise empathy? The answer is having good listening skill. You need to step out yourself to discover what is important to others through listening to learn. "Nobody is more persuasive than a good listener".

"Teaming out for tomorrow" that a leader need to do through the following:

• Create a shared sense of purpose


• Make goals as team goals


• Treat people as individuals they are


• Make each member responsible for the team product


• Share the glory, accept the blame


• Take every opportunity to build confidence in the team


• Be involved, stay involved


• Keep mentoring

There are others guidelines needed to follow after the above:

• Setting Goals
• Focus and discipline
• Achieving Balance
• Creating Positive Mental Attitude
• Learning not to Worry
• The Power of Enthusiasm

Due to time constrain, I am not going to elaborate the above points. Please forgive me if you actually want to know more about the above points. Haha....

What I wrote may just the surface from this book. However, I highly recommend you to read this book as everyday we need to communicate with people and work in groups.

I am still learning to be an effective leader. In this semester 3, I wish I could alter my mistakes made in as leader in previous group assignment. This will be the second chance for me to gain more self-improvement.

Wish me luck.