The heart of leadership

THE HEART OF LEADERSHIP

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When people talk about leadership, most of the time they talk about influence, power, position, authority, good communication skills and so forth. But the most important aspect of the leadership development which is neglected most of the times is the Attitude.

 Attitude is the most important part of the leadership and the personality of a leader. What separated a leader from a follower is his attitude. Most of the people today, prioritizes the ability rather than the attitude which is wrong. Your attitude is what makes you special as a leader. Attitude of the leadership is more important than skill.

There are so many people around you who have the intelligence, the skills and all the other attributes which are required of them in a certain area or field and still what they don’t have is the courage to take the action which is necessary to manifest their dreams. They lack the  attitude and thus, all the other aspects have no effect on their life. If you have the required attitude to lead others then you can also acquire other skills. But, if you lack the attitude of leadership then all the other things will fade out. Attitude is what makes leaders think differently from followers which produces the motivation which then generates into their action.

The attitude of a leader turns his passion into an inspiration for the followers which ultimately leads to the fulfillment of his purpose. Attitude produces certain behavior and that behavior produces people from their limit of the social norm. Therefore, it is the thinking of the person that makes them see circumstances differently. So, if attitude is so much important in the leadership then it is crucial to consider how attitude is developed. Let’s see:

HOW TO DEVELOP THE RIGHT ATTITUDE?

 

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Attitude is a product of Beliefs. You cannot have an attitude beyond your beliefs. Your attitude is determined by your belief system. No one can ever live beyond the limits of their Beliefs. So, if you want to live beyond what you are living right now you have to change your belief system. Leaders are born when they believe that they are here on the planet, to make a difference in the world. Your life is what you think it should be. That’s exactly what you are right now. You are what you thought you should be. And is you don’t like who you are, you got to change what you think you should be. True leaders don’t need any training in management skills, or to get titles or a position of authority, what they just need is attitude of mind. Your development as a leader is determined by three things, here they are:

YOUR PERCEPTION OF WHO YOU ARE: The average human on earth does not know who they are and what is unique about themselves, therefore they try to live onto others expectations and in their image. That’s why people wear the nike, calvin klein and all the other products. They wear others name so that they can feel important. They need an identity for themselves. True leaders know who they are and thus, they don’t need to wear other peoples image.

WHY YOU THINK YOU EXIST? : Most of the people on the earth live right now making a living for themselves but they do not know the purpose of their life. Everyday they go to the job they don’t like, meet people they hate, come back home, do the same things the next day and they do it until they are old and eventually they get fired from their job and call it retirement. But they don’t make a difference to the world, because they didn’t knew what the purpose of their life was. Everything exists for a purpose, so find the purpose that you were born to fulfill.

YOUR SENSE OF SIGNIFICANCE: The perception of who you are and why you are important to the world is very important. Because once you know that you are important to the world, you become very dangerous. You start to know that the world needs you and the contribution that you make to the world is necessary for them.

So, the success of leadership is when the attitude and the ability of the leader work in harmony with each other. If you don’t have the belief, than you ability becomes a victim of your belief.

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When you discover who you are, you don’t pretend to be confident, you automatically become confident. Confidence is a product of your beliefs. What you believe about yourself determines what you think about yourself and the way you think about yourself is the way you behave. And you behave bold, confident and fearless because there are some things that you discovered about you and about life that changed your perception about life. You can never become a leader until you haven’t got the mentality of a leader. What you think is more important than what you do.

You have to carefully choose what you think about and listen to most of the time because the kind of thinking you have determines your belief system and your beliefs affects your attitude towards life. Therefore, you may even have to change some of your friends so that you can become better than you are today. Values attract like values. And the things your friends value might not be good for the destiny that you designed for yourself. You need to be careful when you meet with people and engage with them because their bad attitude can change your attitude towards life. Nothing is worse than an optimist keeping friends with a pessimist.

So, if attitude is about the belief system, then you would agree that everybody in this world has attitude. But then what is the attitude of leadership? Attitude of leadership is that you were born with the ability to lead but you must make up your mentality of a leader. People don’t believe in this thing because they have been influenced by their culture so much that most of them die without even realizing it. They think that they are worth nothing because they have adopted the beliefs of others and made it their attitude. True leadership is not a method or a technique. True leadership is an attitude.

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Develop Character As A Leader

DEVELOP CHARACTER AS A LEADER

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The leaders who have emerged today seem to believe that the primary qualities needed to address our troubled, demanding times are vision; academic and intellectual superiority; dynamic oratory and other communications skills that have the power to influence and control others. However, time and again, history has shown that the most important quality that a true leader should and must have is the moral force of a noble and stable character. Today, every country has leaders who represent them and have the power, position, authority and ample potential to do the best for their people. Yet, many leaders across the globe have ethically and morally fallen apart. Many leaders started strong but ended up “crashing” in the end. These leaders may have looked very competent from outside, but their failure is due to the lack of the real substance within them i.e. CHARACTER. There are several examples of leaders in various arenas like sports, business, politics, religion, arts, media and entertainment world who have fallen down from a position of power due to their character defects.

Due to these leadership failures, there has been a psyche of Distrust creeping in the general public. People have lost trust in their leaders due to their ethical and moral degradation. Therefore, a strong and sound character must be the first and foremost priority of leaders in any organization. Let us define character first.

Character is a commitment to a set values and beliefs that you never violate or compromise with on the altar of convenience.

WHY CHARACTER MATTERS?

• To develop a strong and noble character which will survive through the test and trials of the difficult time, you need to understand the importance of Character in leadership:

• Character establishes and strengthens your inner life, so that you are a person of integrity and honor. Character ensures that you do not become a hypocrite. You do what you say and do not preach something to other people until you do it yourself.

• Character protects your leadership and your vision and prevents you from cancelling them and enabling you to have a legacy for your own generation and for future generations.

• Character is the key to Inspirational Leadership. If you are a person of character, then you have the ability to genuinely encourage and influence people so that they can fulfill their own purposes and live peaceful, productive lives. It also safeguards the well-being of  people who are under the authority of leaders or are affected by leaders actions and influence.

• Character establishes a trust account between the people and their leaders. By showing their stability and predictability through test and trial over time, the leaders can win the trust of  the people and eventually, influence them.

HOW CHARACTER DEVELOPS?

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• BELIEFS: Our belief system has been modified and keeps on evolving or changing throughout our lives by our responses to various influences on us. Those influences includes our families, our friends, our background, our social environment, our education, our religious institutions, the media and so forth. Generally people follow the same trend or course they develop their character whether positive or negative. It goes like this; Our beliefs lead to our convictions, Our convictions produce our values, our values form our morals, our morals lead to personal conduct, our conduct determines our ethics, our ethics forms our character and our character results in our lifestyle.

Therefore, If a person wants to change his belief system, he has to change his ideas about himself and his ideas about the world. The world looks the way, you see it. AS King Solomon rightly said, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”. So, our beliefs about ourselves and the world determines our character and lifestyle.

• VALUES: Values simply means things which you value. Values are Ideas, principles and qualities on which you personally place high worth and putting standards on these things determines your conduct or policy. To become a person of character, you must identify, believe and share your values so that you keep yourself in touch with them. For example; If a person values honesty, then he will make a personal commitment to himself, that he will never tell lies. If a person values the property of others then he has committed himself to not to steal. The values eventually becomes a part of character. The things you value, becomes important to you. As a leader, you should ask yourself this question, “What do I value more than my convictions?”. Is it money? Is it power? Is it position? Is it the title given to you by some authority? Let me assure you, it would be much better for you to die poor with your character than to live rich with corruption. What are the things which you Value?

• Principles or Moral standards: The principles which you set for yourself determines what type of a character you will have. The more committed you are to your principles, the stronger is your character. Set for yourself some moral standards on which you commit yourself to and which you will never compromise even at the cost of your life. When you stand for something which is right, get yourself ready for the persecution and criticism from every direction. So, commit to your principles and make your character heavier than the words you speak.

Therefore, character plays a vital role in leadership as it protects our leadership. Character development is manifested through our beliefs, values and the principles that we set for ourselves. Develop your character as a leader and make a change in the world. Wish you all the very best!

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Questions of the human heart

QUESTIONS OF THE HUMAN HEART

Every human being living on the planet earth was created to live life with meaning and purpose. Until you discover your personal reason for living, you will never be fulfilled. Until you understand the meaning for your existence, you will never be satisfied. No human being on earth is a mistake. Not one of us is a mistake. We were sent here specifically to do something valuable. Most of us don’t know our purpose on earth. So, to make your life meaningful, there are five questions that you must answer if you are going to be successful on this planet.

These  five questions are so important that they control the entire world. Everything that every human does on earth is motivated by these five questions. The poorest man sleeping on the streets is trying to answer these five questions. The wealthiest man living in the palace is struggling with these five questions. Every race, every creed, every ethnic group and culture is fighting over these five questions. These questions control the whole world. They create industry, they create fashion world, they produce entertainment world. These questions wake you up every morning. These are the questions that produce corrupt leaders. These are the questions that create people who abuse their own lives and abuse other people. These five questions control politicians, presidents and prime ministers of countries. It’s because of these five questions that young people take drugs and sleep together without marriage. These questions are so powerful that they cause the destruction in the world due to war. So, what are these five questions? Let’s see:

• WHO AM I? (IDENTITY): It’s a difficult question to answer. The average person on earth does not know who they really are. That’s why, they try to live in others image. This is why people want to wear branded clothing because it gives them an image or identity due to which they feel more important. They don’t know who they are and therefore try to be like other people who have power, position, title or authority. When they know who they are, they do not need to copy others and be like them. Instead, they feel unique about themselves.

• WHERE AM I FROM? (SOURCE): You need to answer to yourself the place where you came from. Some say you came from a monkey others say you came from aquatic life which began to exist on land which produced apes that became you.

• WHY AM I HERE? (PURPOSE): The average human being does not know why they are on planet earth. They wake up every morning, go into the job they hate, working with people they don’t like, getting paid less than their worth and dying too young due to frustration. Because they don’t know why they exist. So, they just make up a living and die fulfilling their personal ambitions and do not make a difference in the world. Therefore, the greatest tragedy in life is not death, the greatest tragedy in life is life without a purpose. There are people who are above 80 years of age and they still don’t know why they were here. Answering this question will give you a purpose and a motivation which will never go down.

• WHAT CAN I DO? (POTENTIAL): Most of the people have no idea about their ability.90% of the human population will die and never achieve more than 10% of their true ability. This is a tragedy. Scientists have proven according to their analysis that the average person uses only 10% of their potential. So, to be a genius all you have to use is 12%. So, even a genius is not a genius! We are only limited by our own thinking. As Rightly said by King Solomann, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”. You need to unleash your true potential instead of believing in others opinion of you.

• WHERE AM I GOING? (DESTINY): Everyone wants to know what is their future. What is my destination? What I am going to do in the next 5 or 10 years. What is the vision that I have to achieve?

These are the five questions which are frustrating the human race and controlling every person on earth. You must answer these five questions personally for yourself in order to live a meaningful life.

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The moral force of leadership

THE MORAL FORCE OF LEADERSHIP

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The most valuable aspect of leadership is not power, position, influence, notoriety, fame, talent, gifting, dynamic oratory, persuasiveness, intellectual superiority, academic achievement, or management skills. It is character. Character is the cradle of credibility for the leader. Without the presence of strong, noble, honorable character, all the other aspects of leadership are at risk. Every leader is only as safe and secure as his character.

Many leadership training courses, seminars and programs focus on vision, skills, management, organization, teamwork, and many other helpful things. Yet only few of them talk about the importance of leader’s character.

You would agree that most of the leaders in the modern era, lack character as they lack the courage to stand for righteousness and to stick to their principles and values. That is why most of the leadership failures we see now are due to lack of standards and values in our leaders.

WHAT IS CHARACTER?

1.     CHARACTER IS A COMMITMENT TO SET VALUES WITHOUT COMPROMISE: Leaders of principles do not compromise their values in the face of pressure. Because their values are based on their power, position, title and everything that they have acquired throughout their lives for the sake of their values. They do not compromise with their values on the altar of convenience. They do not change their values in effect of what people think or believe about them. In fact, they stick to their convictions.

2.     CHARACTER IS DEDICATION TO A SET STANDARDS WITHOUT WAVERING: When a true leader establishes moral parameters for his life, he doesn’t waver in his dedication to them. He does not violate them for anyone or anything. They are dedicated to live by their principles and values.

 

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3.     CHARACTER IS A CONSTANT EFFORT TO INTEGRATE YOUR THOUGHTS, WORDS, AND ACTIONS: True leaders are not hypocrites. What they say, what they do and what they are is the same. Integrity means one. True leaders are not a different person in public and some other in private. The more your private and public life becomes one, the more you become a person of character. A person of character does not fear if you find out what their personal life is. Because they are the same person everywhere. They are not two-faced, because they have integrity of what they think, speak and do.

4.     CHARACTER IS SACRIFICE FOR PRINCIPLES: A principled leader possesses beliefs so strong that he is willing to sacrifice for them their popularity, friendships, colleagues, finances and success.

Nelson Mandela made some major sacrifices for his vision which he saw for his nation. He stayed in prison for 27 years in the Robben Island. He sacrificed his freedom so that others could be free. There are many such leaders in the past who have displayed such commitment to their principles and values.

5.     CHARACTER IS IMPOSING SELF DISCIPLINE IN KEEPING WITH YOUR VALUES AND MORAL STANDARDS: A leader must impose daily discipline upon himself so that he remains aligned with his convictions. A leader must tell himself daily, “I will never violate my principles and values on the altar of convenience.

Therefore, Character is the most powerful force a leader can cultivate because it protects and preserves leadership. Character extends the longevity of your leadership. It enables you to effectively fulfill your purpose and potential. It establishes and strengthens your inner life, so that you are a person of integrity and honor. You lead with your life and not by your words. It will enable you to be a success, personally and professionally, and leave a legacy for your own generation and future generation, as you carry out your purpose, vision and goals in life.

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Become A Leader

BECOME A LEADER

The aspect of leadership is increasingly important in our society today. As we have seen most of the leadership failures due to the lack of understanding of leadership, it is crucial for us to understand and develop ourselves as a leader. As we know that everything that happens in a society is being influenced by someone whether we consciously know about it or not. Leaders influence the society as a whole and the type of leaders whether good or bad determines the destiny of the followers. So it is important for us to develop ourselves as leaders and become agents of change. So let us understand how we can become a true leader and exercise leadership to its full potential.

What is Leadership?

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To become an effective and influential leader we must first understand the meaning of leadership and what it truly means to everyone of us. Here’s what Myles Munroe says about leadership:

“Leadership is the capacity to influence others through INSPIRATION generated by a PASSION motivated by a VISION birth by a CONVICTION produced by a PURPOSE.”

The following are the things which a person should do to become a true leader:

1.     DISCOVER YOURSELF:  To become a true leader, you must understand yourself as who you truly are. You must have an insight on your strengths and weaknesses. Many people in this world do not know who they really are and therefore, they try to live upon others image and their expectations. True leadership is self-discovery. A true leader is the one who has discovered himself and has set himself free from the opinions & expectations of others.

2.     FIND YOUR PURPOSE:  Discover the purpose for which you came to this planet. You must know that you were born to make a difference to the world and you can do that by finding your cause which is your purpose. If you want to design something, you must have a purpose which is also true in aspects of Leadership.

3.     ATTITUDE:  Leadership is more about the attitude of the mind than about ability or skill. What you think is more important than what you do. The mandate of leadership is fully carried out when we have the mentality of a leader. Therefore, its not ability-its mentality.

4.     EXPRESSING YOUR PASSION:  When a leader is passionate about his purpose and vision, he does not need others to motivate him to work. He is his own motivation. He does not wait for somebody to change something but he initiates the change. His passion directs the management of his time, resources and priorities.

5.     COMMITMENT TO PRINCIPLES & VALUES:  Leaders are individuals whose characters have been tested, proven, and established as being faithful and trustworthy. Trust is the one quality which cannot be acquired but must be earned. People start to trust you when you become predictable which happens when you stick to your principle and values. You must set for yourself standards which you will never violate on the altar of convenience. Establishing these will protect and preserve your leadership.

6.     EMPOWER OTHERS:  A true leader is one who leads others to leadership. The purpose of true leadership is not to maintain followers but to produce leaders. Leadership is a commitment to the people. Leaders know and encourage people’s abilities. Leaders help people to discover and to fulfill their purposes.

7.     MENTOR YOUR SUCCESSORS:  The greatest act of leadership is mentoring. If what you learn, achieve and accomplish dies with you , then you are a generational failure. Succession is the measurement of leadership success. You must mentor someone to make them even better than yourself. A leaders legacy is not the accomplishment of goals rather through his successor.

BY following the above mentioned things and applying them to your everyday life, you can develop yourself as a leader. Good luck.

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