Chapter 1
Understanding leadership
“Great leaders never desire to lead but to serve.”
Leadership
is the ability to lead others by influence, and it can also be seen simply as
responding to responsibility. Leaders have very little to do with what you do
and are fundamentally a matter of becoming who you are.
The great Greek philosophers
such as Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates considered and explored the dynamics of
human behavior and the nature of humanity. One of their basic conclusion and tenets
was that leadership is a product of natural endowment and traits of
personality. One is born to lead while others are born to follow.
However, countless deposed kings and hapless heirs to great fortunes can
attest that true leaders are not born but made. They are not made in a single
weekend seminar. In most cases, leaders have been made by accident circumstances,
or determination than all the leadership courses can put together.
Leadership courses can only teach skills they can’t teach character or
vision. Leaders are made through developing character and vision; leaders are
not gifts but results.
Everyone can lead
Leaders are simply people who dare to be themselves and are able to
express themselves fully. To a leader, life is a career. You become a leader when you decide not to be
a copy but an original. True leaders have no interest in themselves or
position, but an abiding interest in expressing themselves. God created all of
us to rule, govern control and influence the earth. He created all of us to
lead.
“You were never created to be
dominated.”
We are all capable of leadership by design,
but we cannot lead correctly and effectively unless we are led by his spirit.
Chapter 2
What is leadership?
“Leadership is first being, then doing. It is the ability to inspire
others to fulfill themselves by you doing the same.”
Leadership is the organizing and coordinating of resources, energies and
relationships in a productive context for an intended result.
An important ingredient of the leadership function is the ability to
draw the best function out of other people and inspire them to maximize their
potential and that of the resources they manage.
Chapter 3
What is a leader?
“Good leaders employ others, great leaders deploy themselves and others.”
You were born to lead but you must become a leader, just as one may be a
male but must become a man.
The word “leader” is defined as one who guides by influence or one who
directs, by going before or along with. Simply put, a leader is one who leads
others to leadership.
What makes a leader
A careful study of the lives of effective leaders will reveal some basic
ingredients that they share. They include
Purpose: The foundation key to becoming a leader is discovering and
capturing a sense of purpose for your life.
Passion: The leader loves what he does and loves doing it. His work is
his life.
Integrity: The leader is one who knows who he is and accepts himself as
worthy and valuable. Maturity is also important because every leader needs to
have experience and growth through following.
Trust: Integrity is the basis of trust which is a product of a leader.
Leaders are individuals whose characters have been tested.
Curiosity and Daring: To a leader, life is an adventure. Leaders are
willing to challenge traditions, experiment with new ideas, and explore.
To become the leader, you were born to be, you must discover who you
are, your purpose in life and understand God’s design for your existence.
“True leaders learn from others, but they are not made nor become
others.”
Leaders not managers
Leaders are those who make things happen. Managers are other groups.
Leaders are those who master the context, managers are those who surrender to
it. All leaders were managers on their way to leadership, but not all managers
become leaders.
1. The
manager administers, the leader innovates
2. The
manager relies on control, the leader inspires trust.
3. The
manager focuses on systems and structure, the leader focuses on people.
“True leaders do no try to be, they
just are".
Chapter 4
The purpose of leadership
Purpose is the original intent or predetermined result for an
individual. It is the expected end. It is, therefore, essential and imperative
that you know and understands the “purpose” for something before assuming
responsibility in a task.
The purpose of leadership is to produce leaders
The ultimate goal of true leaders is not
followers but leaders. True leadership brings followers into leadership and
makes itself increasingly unnecessary. You are a successful leader when your
followers can lead others.
Chapter 5
Are you leadership material
“The greatest display of leadership is service.”
Leadership is the discovery and marriage of purpose, personality, and
potential. You must assess your personal motivation for leadership.
Motivation and ambition
There is a hidden leader in all of us crying to be free, as we approach
the study of some of the basic qualities and characteristic of leadership
development, it is essential that we first cover the foundation principle of
the underlying motivation for leadership.
Chapter 6
The principle key to true leadership
“Authority does not make you a leader, it gives you the opportunity to
be one.”
Highly predictable responses to the use of power
1. Resistance
( fight) : when someone is pushed by someone else, the natural reaction is
almost always to push back.
2. Resignation
(fight) : when faced with a relationship characterized by continual conflict,
we try to get away from it.
3. Submission ( succumb to pressure ): The true
leader knows and understands that no human is going to do what they say. They
understand the only power they truly have as leaders in the power of
inspiration.
Natural and spiritual leadership can never be self-generated
but only be experienced as a result of a personal relationship with the
manufacturer our creator.
Natural leaders Spiritual
leaders
1.Self-confident confidence
in God
2. Knows
men Also know God
3. Make
own decision seek God’s will
4. Ambitious self –
effacing
Chapter 7
Tapping your leadership potential
A leader is by definition an innovator, he does things, people, either
haven’t done or won’t do.
“to be an effective leader, you may listen to all, but in the end. Be
responsible for your own decision.”
Test for leadership potential
Independent decision making
Govern yourself
Ability to control anger
Unconditional acceptance of others.
Self – confident
Forgiving
Encouraging
Chapter 8
Qualifications of leadership
Commitment to integrity
The first category of leadership is the commitment to integrity and high
social standards.
Moral and ethical qualification
Leaders must demonstrate their commitment to the highest ideals and
principles of the word of God. Every time you are put in a position of
responsibility, you automatically become a target for temptation.
The quality of maturity
Maturity is indispensable to good leadership. There is no place for a
novice, a new convert, or inexperienced, untested character in positions of
responsibility.
Intellectual qualifications
True leaders are constantly reaching for more knowledge. If you desire
to become an effective leader, you must study and never graduate from the
university of life.
Chapter 9
Essential Qualities of leadership
The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden
flight. But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the
night.
Discipline
Vision
Common sense
Decisiveness
Sense of Humor
Patience and endurance
Fellowship and friendship.
Chapter 10
The price of leadership
“True leader transcends private comforts others.”
True leaders always demand a high
price of the leader, and the more effective the leadership is the higher the
price to be paid.
Challenges face by leaders
Personal sacrifice
Rejection
Criticism
Loneliness
Pressure and perplexity
Chapter 11
The dangers of leadership
Popularity
Pride
Jealousy
Chapter 12
A word of the third world
Zeal without skill
Historically, the third world people have
always been a hard-working dedicated, zealous, and highly sensitive people.
They have the zeal for freedom but no skill for development. The third world nation
in effect are led to still look to the industrially developed states for their the measure of standard.
2 Comments
Write CommentsNice
ReplyExcellent summary
ReplyEmoticonEmoticon