Leadership is a skill and like any skill, it is something that can be learned. Leaders develop themselves through continuous personal development. Those who excel at it have spent countless hours perfecting their acquired skills. The more time and experience they spend developing this skill, the better they become at it. No one is born an effective leader, just like no one is born with the ability to speak. It is something that is learned by observing what others do, learning how they do it (through practice and repetition), and then copying them. To become a great leader, you must first identify the qualities that make up a leader. By acclimating yourself to leadership qualities, you set yourself up for success on the long journey to becoming a great leader. It's like studying a map before setting off on a trip to an unknown destination. Without a map, you risk wandering aimlessly, never reaching your destination. By having a set of criteria to evaluate yourself against, you can plot an effective route to reach your destination. Leaders share many qualities, including integrity, character, humility, focus, cooperation, confidence and competence. Integrity is moral integrity demonstrated by consistency of beliefs, words and actions. People with integrity practice what they preach, believe what they say they believe, and do what they say they will do. Integrity is also the foundation of character. Character is the ethical and moral strength necessary to demonstrate trustworthiness, respect, fairness, kindness and good citizenship. Leaders demonstrate humility through self-confidence and self-awareness. They recognize the value of others without feeling threatened. They admit that when they are in the middle of a paper, Rio can mean death. With this thought in mind, I refuse to accept failure. To do this, I must master my field. I review new case law and law enforcement publications, regularly attend training and education classes, and constantly practice my perishable skills. As I look at this list of leadership qualities, I realize that these are all skills that I have been working to improve for years. I'm not an expert in any of them and I don't think I'll ever achieve perfection. A leader understands and is aware of where he was in the past, where he is now, and where he wants to be in the future. They work diligently to improve these qualities, but understand that the work is never done. They can always improve. In this way, leaders themselves become the type of leader they want to become and are not born with innate leadership qualities..