Leaders are important individuals in society. Some people are born leaders. They’re the ones who in first grade always organized all the teams during recess and ran for the president of the Student Council freshman year of high school. Others have leadership qualities they release in other ways. Some have hidden leadership qualities that are never realized.

I attended a leadership conference this past weekend in Lexington, KY, and I want to take the time to try to motivate people to become leaders and to inspire other leaders to keep leading.

One of the speakers on a panel, Robert Jepson, Jr., president of Jepson Associates, talked about the seven rules of leadership. The following is a summary of the these rules.

– Dare to dream because all great achievements begin with dreams.

– Have a commitment to excellence.

– Have a genuine concern for others.

– Every thought and action shows integrity. Leaders need to have good morals and ethics.

– Exhibit a willingness to take risks, with risk being defined as a well-thought out investment of time.

– Develop a tolerance for stress. The higher a leader rises, the more presence stress will have in that individual’s life, so the higher people are, the more tolerance for stress they need to build.

– Be appreciative and humble.

Part of being a leader also is making decisions, and I went to a session all about decision-making styles. People make decisions all the time every day, even when they’re not aware they’re making a decision. Just getting up in the morning or hitting the snooze button five times is an example of making a decision. Even not making a decision about an issue or topic is making a decision.

Ken Ruscio, National President of Omicron Kappa Delta leadership society, spoke about the four types of decision making styles – the boss, the manager, the analyst and the judge.

The boss makes personal decisions. What that person wants to do is what will be done. A strength of a boss is that some decision will always be made, and bosses are willing to break the rules. However, their decisions are very personal and lose legitimacy by overruling procedure.

The manager always wants to follow a certain procedure in making a decision. The strength of being a manager is legitimacy, but being a manager is a weakness too because making a decision becomes too rigid.

Analysts look at data and make decisions depending on the facts in front of them. Precision, detachment and thoroughness are some of the strengths of being an analyst. The negative to making a decision based on data is the decision maker gets caught up in not having all the facts, and nothing gets decided.

Judges use personal judgment and ask, “Does it feel right?” when they need to make a decision. The strength of a judge is being flexible and creative, but they are weak because it’s hard to explain their decisions and they can be impulsive.

Not one style is better than the others, but it’s important for leaders to realize a few things. Sometimes even a wrong decision is better than no decision at all. Data can be important, but don’t let not having all the information bother you to the point where you cannot make a choice when one is needed. Sometimes good decisions are impulsive and break set procedures.

If you’re still not in any organizations or are not active in an organization yet, become involved. If you’re a member of an organization, aim to have a more active role. Try to become an officer. It’s important not to spread yourself too thin, but it’s good to be diverse and gain experience doing different activities.

Have dreams, challenge yourself, make a commitment, be honest, take risks … be a leader.

I challenge you to figure out and to be aware of your decision making style. I want to challenge all of you to become a leader in some aspect. As Jepson said, “Your fingertips on time will be determined by what you give, not what you take.” Go out there, make some decisions as a leader and make a difference.