April 22, 2013 Focus Point

April 22, 2013
Focus Point

 

What is Leadership anyway?

 

If you lead people then you influence people and that's a fact. If you have little or no influence you will not be able to lead effectively, if at all.

 

I think we hear many different ideas and opinions about what leadership is and how we grow in leadership. Today I would like to simplify it for all of us. Leadership is Influence, nothing more and nothing less. It means that we are leading people who are following of their own will and choice. We remember the wonderful leadership proverb: "He that thinketh he leadeth, and has no one following him, is only taking a walk." Do you know anyone taking walks? I sure do. They are microwave pop tart leaders, and even though they have a position and people call them "leader", they really have no influence with their people. Have you ever had this kind of supervisor or boss? Have you ever been this kind of supervisor or boss at times? Me too.

 

To be a REAL leader, we do not manipulate, use greed, money, or position to get people to do what we want. This sort of tactic may work for a time, but your people will do just enough to get by. They will not give you their very best unless you have influence with them. So with the exception of maybe the military, you and I must learn how to gain influence with people, and although the results do come quickly when people apply the material that we teach here at the John Maxwell Group, they do not come overnight, nor do they come automatically. We do not want to be microwaved, we want to be in the slow cooker. We are in it for the long haul, we want to become the right kind of leader for the right reasons. Like Margaret Thatcher says, "Being in power is a lot like being a lady, if you have to tell people you are, you are not."

 

I invite you to start today. Commit to yourself that you will not retire for the day until you have done something for your own personal growth, and then do it again tomorrow. Develop a daily habit of growth, and one day you may find yourself asking not "how long will this take" but rather "how far can I go".

 

This week, lets you and I understand what leadership really is and why we need both the attitudes and the skills of leadership in order to move to the next level.

 

Remember. Whatever it takes you can learn!