A  leader walks into the kitchen and finds an optimist and pessimist arguing about whether  the glass is half full or half empty. He asks them both to fill up their glasses and be productive.

For as long as man has been around, man has been on a quest to be lead by great leaders. Leaders with vision, mission, and great strategy. In everything we do, it can either be at school, sports, work, or even at home, a leader has to lead their team to victory. A leader can be identified as a go to person who is usually direct in terms of communication, the members of the team look up to them and can be identified by the way he or she expresses themselves.

You usually hear people talk about natural born leaders and leaders that are made or created.

The natural born leaders are usually the ones who are outspoken from a young age and can express themselves far easier than their peers. While the created leaders, are those that develop their communication skills through personal development training or other forms.

There has to be a common factor between these two people, the natural born leader and the created leader. Both of them can be identified by their character, earlier on or later in life. Since you can only identify something that exist, that means it has to exist on both people all along despite being identified at different times in life.

If it already exists, it means we are all born with leadership skills or characteristics from birth. It means that we are fully packed and loaded with the awesomeness to become great leaders. The difference is how and when that potential is identified, accessed, and actioned. This is where Toastmasters comes in and brings opportunities for all of us to to identify and access our potential.

Leaders need to search within themselves and bring out the wonderful and great strengths that make them unique and great. Our factory settings is that we are all born with the potential for greatness and we should embrace the greatness that we are.

Leaders are within all of us, lets change ourselves first before we try to change the world. Make use of the opportunities Toastmasters offers even if it means starting off  by leading without a title.

Lebogang Mogolane

President Entrepreneurs Club Pretoria