Leaders don’t suddenly materialise. They struggle as they hone their leadership skills. To be a great leader you just need to believe in yourself.

Journalism and activism can be powerful tools for change. Each week in our News Decoder Top Tips, we share advice from reporters, editors, writers and master storytellers on ways to better engage audiences and spur change.

In this Top Tip, News Decoder correspondent Jeremy Solomons explains what it takes to be a leader and suggests ways we can all hone leadership skills.

Top Tips are part of our open access learning resources. You can find more of our learning resources here. And learn how you can incorporate our resources and services into your classroom or educational program or by forming a News Decoder Club in your school.

It’s never too early to begin developing and honing your leadership skills. 

He is curious, focused and self-directed; he is kind, compassionate and good-humoured (most of the time); he has a healthy work/life balance; he has great clarity and knows what he wants; he communicates clearly and directly; he protests perceived injustice in a vocal but non-violent way; he is a forceful influencer and skilled negotiator, with an impish smile; and he is decisive and proactive and he usually gets what he wants. 

His name is Max Gakuba and he is my 22-month-old son.

If Max can display emerging leadership skills as a mere toddler, then you can lead too. If Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate can organise youth strikes and protests to promote climate justice, then you can lead too. If Malala Yousafzai can risk death to advance female education in Pakistan, then you can lead too. 

But where to start? There are three practical things that you can begin doing right from today to hone your own leadership skills:

1. Learn what leadership is and isn’t.

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

Mother Teresa of Calcutta said: “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” 

And Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said: “I don’t mind being wrong. And I’ll admit that I’m wrong a lot. It doesn’t really matter to me too much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing.” 

Sometimes, such bold leadership is innate. But for most leaders, it is learned.

The Dalai Lama studied and practiced for decades in preparation for his ascension to the spiritual throne of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism; the Beatles spent years playing in seedy clubs in Hamburg before becoming the biggest music group in the world; Bill Gates wrote his first software programme when he was 13 but it wasn’t until seven years later that he co-founded Microsoft.

2. Look at yourself and what leadership might mean for you.

German philosopher Friedrich Buechner talked about a divinely inspired calling: “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Here are eight questions for you to begin thinking about and answering for yourself:

1. Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs, what calls you to this world?
2. Why are you alive?
3. What makes you deeply happy?
4. What’s important to you in your life and in the world around you?
5. What are you passionate about?
6. Who do you admire as a global leader (alive or dead; famous or family; real or imagined)?
7. What is your unique gift that you can share with the world?
8. What kind of tangible difference could you possibly make now and in the future?

3. Overcome any natural self-doubt and take the initiative

Peace activist, Martin Luther King, Jr., said: “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

This first step might simply be mentoring an immigrant child and helping them to read and write in your country’s language or volunteering and taking a small role on your school’s student council.

Then as you gain experience and self-confidence, you might decide to co-facilitate a virtual peer discussion group on global climate issues or become a delegate to a regional conference on youth leadership.

And by testing yourself and learning about leadership in a practical way, you can begin to take control of your own future and start to influence and even transform the world around you.

“Change is inevitable, but transformation is by conscious choice.” (Heather Ash Amara, U.S. writer)

Questions to consider:

1. What do you think of the statement that “it’s never too early to begin developing and honing your leadership skills”?
2. What do you think of the statement that “there is no such thing as a totally good or totally bad leader”? 
3. What will you personally do now to begin developing your leadership skills?

Jeremy Solomons is a global leadership coach and facilitator, based in Kigali, Rwanda, where he writes regular “Leading Rwanda” and "Letter from Kigali" columns for the New Times newspaper. In the past, he was a Reuters financial reporter in Hong Kong and New York City and then a foreign correspondent in Frankfurt. He was also a farmer in Israel, factory worker and teacher in France, banker in England and Switzerland and entrepreneur in Italy.