The glamour is attractive, the flashes and glory of being a successful team leader draws a lot of people. The power of commanding people and hearing “Yes, Sir! Yes, Ma!”, makes a lot of people have fantasies about being leaders. The foundation of leadership is encapsulated in this statement by Martin Luther King Jr “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘what are you doing for others?’”. The question then becomes, how can a person lead others, when that person has not lead himself/herself?
Stay tuned as I drop a few L’s.
Lead: The first L you must receive is to lead yourself. John C. Maxwell says “If you wouldn’t follow yourself, why should anyone else?”. A leader is looked upon as the one who shows the way and directs the path. A captain is not just a fancy name given to the person who gets to wear a fancy cap, some bright white jacket and gives orders to his/her crew members. NOPE! A captain is the leader of the ship, the person responsible for the members of his/her crew. The captain makes the hard decisions and either leads the crew to victory or sinks with the ship.
Leadership starts from you. The truth is before you can lead anyone, you must first understand yourself and lead yourself to the point where you grow and achieve your personal aims and objectives. If you cannot coordinate yourself, and your activities, you cannot lead a team. Spend time understanding yourself, setting goals and working together with yourself to achieve those goals. A person who cannot lead himself/herself cannot lead others.
Learn: Every day is a lesson marked out in the curriculum of your life. It presents you an opportunity to learn something new or an opportunity to learn from a past mistake. Without a new day, we would not learn to think forward by looking backwards.
The second L you would receive is called Learn. The statement “are you a learner?” is often seen as a form of insult. I mean, how can you call me a learner? When I have spent so many years on this earth? (many of us would say). The truth is, every master was once a learner and every master is still a learner. Learning in life is not restricted only to the classrooms, life daily loads us with lessons. As a leader, you must learn. Learning has to be intentional. You can learn from books, audio messages, videos, from mistakes; people's mistakes and your mistakes. You learn more from mistakes. Thomas Edison failed 10000 times before inventing the light bulb, but he was recorded saying “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10000 ways that won’t work”. As a learner, you will make mistakes. As you learn from those mistakes, you become a better leader. Keep learning, keep growing.
Live: The next L of leadership a leader would receive is called Live Life. Honestly, leadership may seem stressful. With all the expectations, project deadlines, planning, long meetings, prayer session and the stress of implementing what has been planned. This is actually the fun part of leadership; you get to use your gifts and talents. You have great gifts deposited within you, but you have to stir them up. Thomas Edison once said “if we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves”. You need to dare yourself, in order to stir up your gifts. Do something challenging, try something new. Be consistent at it. You'll find out that you would become better at it by the day.
You do not need a big position to be a leader; leadership starts from you. Express yourself. Social media has given us a platform to air our views. So, post your write ups, let your voice be heard. Speak about things that you are passionate about. You could be passionate about education, sports, music, fine art or even cooking. Share your passion with the world. I learn a lot from YouTube; imagine if never existed. All I’ve learnt so far, were from people who decided to share what they knew with others. They became my leaders at that time because of what they knew. So, do not be shy. Dare yourself, express yourself, follow your passion and air your views. God did not put those gifts in you by accident, great things lie within you. So live life by making maximum use of your gifts and talents. Albert Einstein once said "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile". Someone needs what you know, so enjoy what you do. Aspire to improve, and share what you are learning along the way.
Two more L’s remain in this leadership post series, so stayed for more updates in my next post. Do leave a comment if this inspires.
Make the decision to apply these L’s to your life.
#BeBlessed #BeInspired
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