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Admission to the leadership track within an organization is usually only the beginning of the path to significant leadership responsibility.

Within the purchasing profession, as well as many others, leaders generally need to work their way up. My observations over the years would suggest few people fall into leadership positions.

One of the most basic steps in the process of career advancement is to find a limited role and master it: to understand how a job fits into the larger picture; to understand where the organization is headed and why; to cultivate the patience to make a success of each small part of an assigned task.

In human society, with its complex and varying relationships and processes, success is rarely the product of instinct; it is the child of understanding.

Only one of these is the path that runs towards leadership. The development of understanding is one — but only one — aspect of personal development.

In relation to the purchasing function, other critical concerns include social skills, professional standing and ability, personal reputation as well as an individual’s health and well-being.

An emerging leader needs to develop a game plan for his or her own advancement. To do so, it is necessary to identify what types of skills or expertise are required to excel in the field of choice.

Mastering one thing affords a person the opportunity to master other things. Many skills (communication, the ability to plan, the ability to focus attention) are transferable to any number of different contexts.

One way to be successful is to stand out in a crowd. There are only two ways to achieve this: be especially good or especially bad at something. No one stands out in a crowd by being part of the crowd.

A corporate leader must think for himself or herself. However, there are risks in standing too far out from the crowd or in being too independent a thinker.

I would point out there are many great individuals who are not and who never will be leaders. They are eccentrics. They may have great perception and great understanding. They speak eloquently. They may even accomplish great things as individuals.

But because of their eccentricity, they are not leaders. People may like, admire or even trust them, but they will not follow them.

Becoming a leader in your organization entails respect, drawing upon the teaching of training and experience, tapping into one’s emotional strength, the process of self-discipline through which one masters the management of oneself as well as other people, to focus the maximum directed effort on the task undertaken.

I would say members of any team expect its leadership to exhibit vision, to be able to sense and capitalize upon momentum, and to command the timing of the process to change.

When viewed as an integrated whole, the process of leadership seems complex and difficult to understand. However, it becomes readily comprehensible when broken down into constituent parts.

It has always been my belief that some people are born with greater natural gifts than others that suit them for a leadership role.

However, everyone has certain strengths as well as weaknesses.

What sets leaders apart from those who follow them is that leaders are better able to capitalize on their strengths and mitigate the adverse effect of their weakness.

Those who are best able to develop and improve their leadership skills are remembered as the great leaders of history. Those who do so to a lesser degree achieve correspondingly less.

I believe the development of leadership skills is an ongoing process.

Successful leaders are successful learners. They build up their leadership skills step by step, drawing on each experience that life affords them.

Each task undertaken affords an opportunity to learn.

Stephen Bauld is a government procurement expert and can be reached at swbauld@purchasingci.com. Some of his columns may contain excerpts from The Municipal Procurement Handbook published by Butterworths.