This is a guest post by Lewis Jacobs, a free lance writer and social media specialist.

You’ve heard the phrase “natural born leader.” But what if you aren’t a natural born leader? How do you go about acquiring the skills and tools and the confidence to become a leader in your own right?

Hopefully, you are learning what it takes to be productive and to help those on your team to be productive as well. One way to increase your leadership “productivity” is to turn to social media and online communities. Where to turn though?

Basecamp

Project management is a skill every leader needs. Being a leader means being able to communicate effectively to a team, and that comes into play big time when you have a goal to meet. Basecamp is an online community where you can effectively manage projects from the development stage through the final product.

You can create projects, add checklists, start discussions with your team, upload multiple files to the same place and even keep your team informed with an updateable calendar.

Another reason Basecamp can help sharpen your leadership productivity skills? You can keep everyone up-to-date even when they’re out of town, out of the office or just out of the loop. Basecamp provides daily recaps, and gives you the ability to go back to different days to see any progress that was made.

iGoogle

An effective leader is informed. That could mean anything from staying on top of news in your industry to keeping tabs on breaking news in different fields. iGoogle is a great way to do both.

Setting up iGoogle only takes seconds and customizes your Google page to your preferences. Select different areas of searches you want to be informed of, and they’ll be there waiting for you in your own personalized Google dash.

Why is this important for leadership productivity skills? By staying informed and reading various articles, you can get ideas for brainstorming as well as seeing what’s new in your line of business.

/NOTE/ iGoogle will no longer be available after November 1, 2013.

HootSuite

Leaders need to have great organization and communication skills. Whether you’re managing a group of people, or managing details of your own life, you need a way to keep track of things. HootSuite is a great way to keep an eye on many moving parts, all at once.

Think of HootSuite like a real-time dashboard. You can manage multiple social media sites from one platform, schedule messages ahead of time and have complete control over your social networks. You’ll learn time management as well as become an expert at handling many things at once.

Trello

Trello is an online tool that you can share and use for quick and fluid communication. When it comes to building leadership qualities, flexibility is one of those things that you need to have in your arsenal. Being able to expect the unexpected and handle quick changes is an irreplaceable trait.

Trello lets you invite members to your “board.” There you can make tasks quickly and easily, assign people to tasks, and move them in real time. Need to make a quick change? No problem. Trello is an accommodating site that lets you change and update tasks incredibly easily.

When changes are being made, it can be hard to keep up – Trello has a real-time tracker so you can see who is doing what at what time.

Trello is also great for strategic development. Lead your team through different brainstorms and ideas by posting thoughts on a Trello board.

Twitter

Yup, Twitter. Even though this is a social site everyone is familiar with, it is a weapon that many successful leaders and CEOs use. Why? It’s the clearest and simplest form of online communication.

You can connect instantly with hundreds and thousands of people, share ideas, create hype with hashtags, make yourself relatable and strengthen relationships.

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With all of these online options for you, it makes it easier and more convenient to become a productive leader. Make sure have  reliable local internet options to prepare you for your online leadership.

Every now and then, ESPN will air the World Series of Poker. They play Texas Hold’Em for gobs of cash and bragging rights.

The most dramatic moments occur when one of the players at the table utters two words…

All In.

photo credit: Reza Vaziri via photopin cc

Most of the time, this means the player is putting all of his or her chips on the table. It’s typically an all or nothing move. Get the winning hand and you play on. Lose the hand and you’re done for the day.

You can feel the excitement and intensity rise in the room when those words are uttered. Sometimes a player will call “all in” because he is sure that his hand will win the round. Other times, a player knows this is a last ditch effort to remain in the game.

While I don’t know a lot about poker or all of the nuances to playing Texas Hold’em, I do know a little something about going “all in.” Continue Reading…

One question that I’m often asked is whether or not I believe every person can be a leader?

My answer: yes and no.

I answer “yes” because I think every person has the potential and the responsibility to lead oneself well. I believe leadership does start with you. You and I must learn, practice, and hone our ability to lead our own selves well.

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But I also answer “no.” Not everyone is equipped or capable of leading others well. While we all have some level of influence with those around us, it takes a special person to step up and inspire, organize, and move a group of people in a certain direction…together.

In a room full of people, I encourage everyone to lead themselves well. But not everyone will be called upon to be a leader of others. Continue Reading…

I walked into the room full of newly elected student leaders. You could feel the excitement. You could sense that each one of them was motivated to do his or her very best. They all wore the same t-shirt. They were all on the same team. The only question that remained between their success or failure as a group was a simple one…

Would they learn to trust each other?

Every new year is full of excitement and anticipation. But the one big difference between the teams that overcome the obstacles and the ones who get blown apart by the barriers is found in one basic characteristic…trust.

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Patrick Lencioni, in what I consider to be one of the best leadership books for teams, The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team, states the following:

“Remember teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”

He goes on later in the book to say…

“Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.”

Building trust with your team and teammates is foundational to the success of your team.  Continue Reading…

The life of a student can be very demanding. You are learning to balance your classes, your relationships, your workload, and your free time. On top of all that, you became a student leader.

In the midst of the demands, it’s easy to begin to live from event to event…from one task to the next. When that happens, you will find yourself trying to play catch-up all year. You may miss out on what can be a great experience for you. A school year is demanding, both mentally and physically. Those intense weeks of learning, reading, and studying – coupled with your other involvements and responsibilities – can be draining.

My hope is that you will start off your student leadership year the right way. Before you become overwhelmed, I want you to think about how to implement each of these four strategies. This is simple advice for student leaders (or most any student) who want to get the M.O.S.T. out of the opportunities they’ll encounter during their student leadership year. Continue Reading…

Do you know how to pick out a quality piece of fruit?

Everyone I talk to seems to have a technique to pick out the sweetest, juiciest, and tastiest ones in the pile. But I don’t have that ability.

For example, I was trying to make these fancy fruit parfaits for a special meal I was preparing. The recipe called for a mango. So I went to the mango pile at the grocery store and started looking them over. I picked the one that looked the best out of the bunch. It didn’t have any blemishes on the outside, felt solid, and had a great color.

photo credit: Justin Berger via photopin cc

But when I got that mango home and cut it open, it was brown and rotten on the inside. At that point, I realized the fruit parfaits I was making would be mango free.

I think there’s something we can all learn from a rotten mango. Continue Reading…

I have a running joke with some of my friends. You might have a similar one.

We imagine what we’d do if we won the lottery.

We dream about how we would spend all that money. We talk about how many problems we could solve with our winnings. But then someone will state the obvious…

“Don’t you have to buy a lottery ticket to have a chance at winning the lottery?”

We all smile. None of us wants to spend the money on a lottery ticket. But it sure is fun to dream about what would happen if we won the thing.

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Do you see the disconnect (I guess that’s what makes it a joke to us)? You can’t win the lottery unless you buy a ticket.

I know a lot of people who dream about making a difference or enjoying an adventure. They want to get involved. They aspire to do great things. They want to accomplish something significant. But they’re frozen behind a wall. Continue Reading…

I don’t like to wait. The study of leadership seems to be about doing, about making something happen. But there are situations where I have made the decision to wait. Because that’s the right decision. A good decision can become a bad decision if it’s not the right time. Timing matters.

But it’s even harder to wait when the decision or circumstance is out of our control.

Yet even when we don’t have control over why we have to wait, we do get to make some choices about how we wait.

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Unfortunately, we live in a culture that starts to get upset if the drive-thru line takes more than five minutes. There is a constant push for instant gratification. We don’t like to wait. “I want it now” is the mantra of those who have little patience and a poor grasp of timing.

I don’t think there is anyone out there who wakes up every morning and thinks to him or herself, “Yes…I get to wait some more today.” Yet we all wait. We wait for buses and trains. We wait at stoplights. We wait in long lines. We wait to hear back about a job. We wait to see the one we can’t live without. We wait for tough times to end. We wait for the right time to make a decision. We wait for so many things. Continue Reading…