Leadership- Misconception of position

 

1. Misconception of Position in Leadership

 “The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.” (Ken Blanchard)

 There is a prevailing misconception that leadership is about the position because leadership is often associated with job titles. This misunderstanding has deceived more people than all the other misconceptions combined. It has created the illusion that once you attain a certain level of authority, you become a leader. This is untrue.

You may become the head of a department, but not necessarily the leader in that department. The leader is the one who serves and sacrifices the most for a worthy cause. And if that is not you, you are not the leader, but rather merely the person with the position of authority. Job titles and positions are not indicative of leadership, but rather demanding of it.

When an organization sends out a communiqué to announce the hiring of a new chief financial officer (CFO), it usually indicates that a new leader has been hired for the finance department. While there is an element of truth in this, it does not automatically translate to effective leadership.

A new “leader” may have been hired for that department, but the position does not make the incumbent a leader, neither do the responsibilities. While many people unfortunately confuse leadership with positions of authority, positions of authority do not automatically translate to leadership in action.

Being the governor of a state is a rank of authority, just like a high court judge. But until you begin to demonstrate the leadership capabilities of informing, influencing and inspiring others, you are not a leader, but merely a person in the role of authority. No one has the right to claim the title of a leader. It is conferred informally by the beneficiaries of your hard work and sacrifice and by the consistent exceptionalism of your character and service.

Most job promotions, I discovered, are often based on education, experience and exposure rather than on the leadership abilities to effectively inform, influence and inspire others to achieve greater heights. Despite the value of education, experience and exposure, if that new CFO is unable to effectively inform, influence and inspire the people in his department, then that organization has merely hired just another employee. Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford had no formal education, but because of their remarkable leadership capabilities, history classifies them as exceptional leaders of modern industrialization.

 

A cultural change is necessary for correcting this misconception in your organization. It requires a paradigm shift in the mindset of everyone in the institution, especially those who consider themselves as leaders because they simply hold positions of authority.

 

When governments and organizations consult with me on this topic, I work with them to build a corporate strategy that will inspire every employee to maximize their potential, regardless of their job title. The objective is to create a workplace where employees can best apply their talents and skills both inside and outside the organization.

Since titles and positions are important to organizational structure, communiqués about new positions should clearly indicate the role that is being filled. Corporate memos should emphasize how the leadership capabilities of the appointee or incumbent were instrumental in her successful promotion.

When an organization announces the hiring of a new “leader” instead of indicating the position, they would be subtly communicating to other employees that leadership is a title. They would be telling everyone else that the only person who is paid to lead is the person who was hired for it; everyone else must follow that person thereafter.

If you think that holding a position of authority automatically makes you a leader, you may never become one. Organizations that wish to advance their vision and mission should create a culture where employees can willfully demonstrate their leadership

 

Live a Life

On being asked about the ups and downs of his career, movie star Kevin Costner responded with these words, “I’m living a life.” I found this reply to be profound. Rather than spending his days judging the events and experiences of his life as either good or bad, he adopted a neutral stance and simply decided to accept them for what they are: a natural part of the path he is on. We all travel different roads to our ultimate destinations. For some of us, the path is rockier than for others. But no one reaches the end without facing some form of adversity. So rather fight it, why not accept it as the way of life? Why not detach yourself from the outcomes and simply experience every circumstance that enters your life to the fullest? Feel the pain and savor the happiness. If you have never visited the valleys, the view from the mountaintop is not as breathtaking. Remember, there are no real failures in life, only results. There are no true tragedies, only lessons. There really are no problems, only opportunities waiting to be recognized as solutions by the person of wisdom. 

Don't Dream It, Be It.

Take the Unfathomable Risks

 I will make you this promise: on your deathbed, in the twilight of your life, it will not be all the risks you took that you will regret the most. Rather, what will fill your heart with the greatest amount of regret and sadness will be all those risks that you did not take, all those opportunities you did not seize and all those fears you did not face. Remember that on the other side of fear lies freedom. And stay focused on the timeless success principle that says: “life is nothing more than a game of numbers – the more risks you take, the more rewards you will receive.” Or in the words of Sophocles, “Fortune is not on the side of the faint – hearted.” To live your life to the fullest, start taking more risks and doing the things you fear. Get good at being uncomfortable and stop walking the path of least resistance. Sure, there is a greater chance you will stub your toes when you walk the road less traveled, but that is the only way you can get anywhere. As my wise mother always says, “you cannot get to third base with one foot on second.” Or as Andre Gide observed, “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” The real secret to a life of abundance is to stop spending your days searching for security and start spending your time pursuing opportunity. Sure, you will meet with your share of failures if you start living more deliberately and passionately. But failure is nothing more than learning how to win. Or as my dad observed one day, “Andrew, it’s risky out on a limb. But that’s where all the fruit is.” Life is all about choices. Deeply fulfilled and highly actualized people simply make wiser choices than others. You can choose to spend the rest of your days sitting on the shore of life in complete safety or you can take some chances, dive deep into the water and discover the pearls that lie waiting for the person of true courage. To keep me inspired and centered on the fact that I must keep stretching my own personal boundaries as the days go by, I have posted the following words of Theodore Roosevelt in the study where I write: It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

DON'T DREAM IT, BE IT.

GENEROSITY

“If you want love and abundance in your life, give it away.” (Mark Twain)

Generosity is more than just tossing a dollar into the lap of the less fortunate. It is where a spiritual mindset meets a heart that is so determined to make a difference in the lives of others. As a leader, what you must be generous with the most is your time, for most people are drawn to you to be informed, inspired and influenced, which requires your time.

In the words of Suze Orman, the renowned financial advisor, “True generosity is an offering; given freely and out of pure love. No strings attached. No expectations. Time and love are the most valuable possession you can share.” How generous would people say you are with your time, money and even talent?

Exceptional leaders are also known to be generous with their words of encouragement. They understand the power of words and thus use their words to build up people and themselves. Generosity is one of those words that have been relegated to religion alone, even though it is an essential trait for fulfillment in life. Without generosity, leadership is ineffective. As a leader, you must ensure that the quest for growth should never trump the need for generosity.

Exceptional leaders are also generous with their knowledge. It is the same passion with which they sought after knowledge that they also share it. As a leader, one of your objectives must be to ensure those around you know more than you do, without you ever falling behind in the knowledge that is required to advance the vision.

Of what use is your knowledge if those who are attracted to your vision do not leverage it? Millions of people were attracted to the generosity with which the iconic leaders we adore today shared their knowledge. Withholding information that would inform and inspire others is not leadership. No greater honour is there in life than to share with others what was a blessing to you.

DON'T DREAM IT, MAKE IT HAPPEN.

YOUR GREATNESS IS A CUBE

A cube is made of three sides; the length, breadth and height. This is also the basis of your life. The first dimension of a great life is the Length of life. This is the inward concern for one’s welfare. This is what causes a push to move forward, to achieve your goals and ambitions. This is the critical dimension of life where we are preoccupied with developing our inner powers. This is the selfish dimension of life. This is all about advancement, progress and achievement and all these result from well expressed ambitions and well defined dreams. The great a dream, the greater a person’s life becomes and as Dr. Robert Schuller said “There are no great people in this world, we are all ordinary individuals but the difference between us is that some have got bigger dreams than others.”

The second dimension of a great life is the breadth of life. This is the outward concern for the welfare of others. Greatness is also achieved by not being self centered but by focusing on empowering others. The more people you empower in life, the more you will enjoy in your life. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, observed “A man has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his own individual concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity”. In fact by lighting other lamps, you make yours more brighter. Have a reflection of all great men and women in history then you will discover how they lived beyond themselves and most of them did not care much about their personal interests but offered their lives for the welfare of humanity. Examples are Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, J.F. Kennedy, Prof. Wangari Maathai, etc who made huge sacrifices in their life for the sake of the community. Remember anyone can be great because anyone can serve.

The last dimension is the height of life. In order to achieve an all round greatness, one must master the third dimension of a great life. You must move beyond the self interest (Length), empowering humanity (breadth) and reach up, way up for the God of universe, the creator of heaven and earth. Unfortunately most people forget this and after achieving the two dimensions, they assume they have achieved everything they wanted in life. Most attain the length of life, a few achieve the breadth of life while one or none achieve the height of life. We still need God and it is an obligation whether we like it or not otherwise we are only but pursuing a rat race. Most of us use God as a stepping stone to cross a flooded river but immediately forget about the stone after crossing to the other side of the water. Those who forget about God in the pursuit of greatness end up very badly and in life it does not matter how you begun but how you finish.

This is the three dimension of a complete life as propagated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Love yourself, love your neighbor and love your God. Embrace the three dimensions for a greater life.

Don’t Dream It, Be it.

SELF DISCOVERY IS THE PASSWORD TO YOUR GREATNESS

The essence of life is about knowing, loving and respecting yourself as summarized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Meir Kahare underscored this when he said “It is incumbent upon us to understand our greatness and believe in it so that we do notcheapen and profane ourselves”. I strongly concur with this. For a man to have a great life is self knowledge or self awareness. Every great legend lives with a top notch sense of self knowledge.

William Barclay was very clear about this. He said “There are only great days in a man’s life; the day they were born and the day they discovered why they were born.”  You might live for seventy years but be useless for all those days unless you discover the two most important days of your life. Better you live one day as a lion than living a hundred years as a sheep. Most people know their birthdays but unfortunately they don’t know anything about their second day which is the day they discover their life’s purpose. Purpose is the reason as to why something exists. In the process of unmasking your purpose, you have to be clear about who you are and what you really want in this world.

Peel off the layers of identity crisis, self doubt and reach deep into your true self. Make up your mind to be all you can be. Winston Churchill once said “Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up, hurry off as if nothing ever happened”. This is the reality about how the purpose of life can be elusive to a person. The most challenging journey is the journey of self discovery. What values are most important to you? What is of great interest to you? What is your passion? What do you believe in? What do you aim to achieve? What gives you more energy? What are you are ready to keep pursuing even if there is no credit for having done it very well?

To achieve your purpose in life, you have to sacrifice what you are and have for what you could become. One of the critical steps to a great life is self knowledge. If you don’t understand yourself, others won’t understand you. You have to be quick in understanding yourself. Most of us we have met so many people but unfortunately we have failed to meet the most important person in our life- Ourselves. People know so much about great people but know very little about themselves. No wonder we have seen more followers than leaders in this world. Many people will be found glued on television cheering Manchester and Arsenal while on the other side they have not discovered the Arsenal or Manchester in themselves. It is very unfortunate. Nevertheless, It is never too late. You still have time for self discovery. Play the role that your destiny has for you. What is this that you have been ignoring that is calling for your utmost attention?

Self discovery and self acceptance is the key to your life’s purpose. Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. These are the words of Tao Te Ching, These are the best parting words.

Don’t Dream it, Be it.

IT IS NOT DONE UNTIL YOU DO IT

None of the secrets of success will work unless you do. Theories won't lead to tour destiny but work will. You were created for action. The more enterprising you are, the more free you are and this is the rule of free enterprise system. William Shakespeare said Nothing can come of nothing. A belief is futile unless converted into action.For many of us who believe in the bible, the word Action is mentioned 500 times. If they don't work, you don't deserve to eat.
You cannot just dream yourself into what you could be. Recall the slogan of great leaders hub, Don't dream it, Be it. An old adage says," Laziness travels so slowly, poverty soon overtakes it." If you spend most of your precious time talking about success will win you the medal of failure.Laziness will force you to work twice.Remember God did not create apple juice, he created apples.The rest is up to man.While the world portrays itself as  a football game, most people instead of being players, they have decided to be on the side of spectators.
The world is divided into people who do things and people who talk  about doing things.I advise you be in the first group, there is no competition in this group. The other group has millions of people. God blessed us with work and he didn't put to us as a burden. We are all alike in our promises but we differ by our deeds. Wishing will never make you rich.

Brendon Francis said that Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand  immediate marriage to action. If the truth has to be known then most of our troubles arise from loafing when we should be working and talking when we should be listening.
The man who delivers the goods is the man who never gets turned down and is always gets a welcoming hand.

Don't dream it, Be it.

TAKE CARE OF THE TRIO G’s IN YOUR LEADERSHIP JOURNEY

What is in you is like fire and whether you try to hide it will just come out. As it sprouts out, your vision must be known to the world. This vision will create other leaders as you become great day by day. As you climb this ladder, I wish to caution you of the three G’s that Myles Munroe cautioned of. Beware of Glory, Gold and Girls. These are what I summarize as the three G’s. As I was reading through the great book written by the great teacher and leader, Alex Ihama, I read of these three G’s he learned from the late Munroe and felt I will be very selfish for not sharing this treasure with you. The three G’s are sure ways of falling a man if not well managed.
Glory is awaiting you if you live a life of purpose. Popularity and prosperity which you seek and die for notoriously are only valuable and sustainable if received as a result of the pursuit of purpose. Recall glory and fame should never be motivators of leadership; people are always attracted to leadership. Glory is reserved for God. We are tempted to be glorified whenever power and leadership comes our way. Munroe said fame should never be the focus, but in the humble belief of self as a source of inspiration to others.
With Gold, Dr. Munroe advises that when we discover our purpose in life and give give up everything for it, riches will come. But money should not be a motivator for leadership and should be managed effectively to fulfill the purpose and advance the vision. He believed that leaders should work hard to make themselves comfortable, but never at the expense of their purpose and the people entrusted to them. Gold must be spent to advance a vision that is greater than the self, as well as to expand the kingdom of God. In Kenya, I have examples of great men and women of God who have been fallen by the greed for Gold, chasing for political offices in order to make money. They have been sent to oblivion and their vision shattered.
As for Girls, this is the greatest indicator and temptation a man of purpose is bound to face. Munroe related his best form of protection against temptations when traveling around the world was to travel with his wife. It is a wise action of integrity. Power attracts temptations and many have fallen because of girls. Beware of beautiful girls ready to bring you down.
Memorize the 3 G’s, practice them and you will be a great leader. Don’t Dream It, Be It.

THE PRINCIPLES OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP (THE 16 P’s)

(1)PURPOSE

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. An entrepreneur must see beyond the moment; he must travel to a desirable future ahead of his followers to lead them there, hence, purpose and vision is sine qua non to entrepreneurship. Robert Byrne said, “The purpose of life is a life of purpose”. The hardest thing for an entrepreneur to discern is distraction. Purpose keeps you on course. A hustler is an ‘entrepreneur’ without a definite goal and purpose, a business without a definite purpose is open to abuse. An entrepreneur has a gold mine when he has a goal mind. Charles Noble said, “You must have long-term goal to keep you from being frustrated by short term failures”. Henry Ford had a global goal, to develop the first auto-mobile that the middle class Americans can afford to buy. His introduction of the model T automobile revolutionized the transportation and the American Industry. Ford’s goal was to: create a motor car for the great multitude.  At that time, automobiles were very expensive and custom-made machines. During the industrial revolution, cars were like buying a private jet today until Ford created the assembly line, the Ford’s dream: the creation of an inexpensive mass-produced automobile came to reality and today, the automobile is within reach for common People just because one man stuck to his purpose! Robert Brault said, “You can accept reality, or you can persist in your purpose until reality accepts you”.

(2) PASSION

Steve jobs said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do”.  Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. Passion is the fuel that drives purpose. The things we are created to do excite us while the things we were not created to do exhaust us. Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Jack Welch said, “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion”. Passion is the only virtue of entrepreneurs that is contagious. Money follows passion and not the other way around.

(3) PEOPLE 

Margaret Wheatley said, “A leader is the one who has more faith in people than they do, and who holds opportunities open long enough for their competence to re-emerge .“ One of the greatest prerequisite of a great enterprise is that it will require people. The greatest form of bankruptcy in business is not money but people. People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. A company is only as good as the people it keeps. Growth and profit are a product of how people work together. It takes people to make the dream a reality. Bang Gae said, “Team work makes the dream work”.

(4) PROCESS

In quality control, the understanding is that as long as the process is perfect, the product is guaranteed, proper procedure eliminates unwanted consequences. The integrity of the product lies in the process, in fact, the process guarantees the product. George W. Bush once said, “You can’t do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow”. Great entrepreneurs understand that in business, if you focus on the goal and not the process, you inevitably compromise. Great entrepreneurs are process focused and not outcome focused, Noam Shpancer said, “the process is important regardless of the outcome”

(5) PRICE

Price must be value oriented and competitive, pricing is actually pretty simple; customers will not pay literally a penny more that the true value of the product. Katherine Paine said, “The moment you make a mistake in pricing, you’re eating into your reputation and profit”. Warren Buffet, the one-time richest man in the world said, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”.

(6) PROBLEM

Mike Murdock said, “Money is the reward you get for solving someone’s problem”. In business, the man who has no problems to solve is out of the game. Successful entrepreneurs don’t just make profit, they proffer solutions to problems, a problem is a solution yet to be discovered. The richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote, said  “ Every morning when I wake up, I make up my mind to solve as many problems, before retiring home”, no wonder he is the richest man in Africa! Great entrepreneurs think and solve problems for a living,  Albert Einstein said, “problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them”. When Albert Einstein was being interviewed to reveal the secret of his awesomeness, he said, “It is not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer”. No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking.

(7) PROFIT

Profits are like breathing. You have to have them. But who would stay alive just to breath? You must consider the bottom line, but make it integrity before profit. Henry Ford, the father of modern automobile and one of the greatest entrepreneurs that the world has ever produced said, “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large”. Businessmen who focus on profit wind up in the hole, profit is what happens when you do everything right. Ray Anderson said, “Business makes profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that”.

(8) PRODUCT

Quality is the best kind of advertising. The quality of a product must never be compromised, for when quality is compromised, profit has been forfeited. Peter Drucker said, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product fits him and sells itself”. The easiest way to keep a business from becoming obsolete is to keep evolving and the moment the product becomes irrelevant, the business becomes irrelevant. Steve jobs, the main back bone behind the Apple innovations said, “If you keep your eye on the profit, you are going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow”. Tom Peters, author of in search of excellence said, “Be distinct or be extinct”. A product must meet a unique need; the easiest way to go into extinction is to do what every other person is doing.

(9) PERSISTENCE

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States of America said, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent  will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful man  with talent. Geniuses will not, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent”. Where the willingness is great, the difficulties can never be great. Genius is one-percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration (Thomas A. Edison). One of the most impactful inventions of Thomas Alva Edison is the light bulb and despite the plethora of his errors and blunders, Thomas was unflinching in his resolve to make the world brighter than he met it. In response to a question on the number of times he failed, he said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t”. The strength of entrepreneurs lies in their tenacity, consistence and persistence to a worthy cause. Winston Churchill, the former prime minister of Britain said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”  It is always too soon to quit (Norman Vincent Peale).

(10) PREPARATION/PLAN

Failure in business is a result; it is a result of not preparing. When you are too busy to plan, you will be too easy to be disorganized. Chance favors only the prepared mind. Henry Ford said, “There are many secrets to success in life but getting ready is the greatest of them all”. When opportunity presents itself, it is too late to prepare. The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his time when it comes, one of T.V screen goddess in America, Oprah Winfrey said, “I don’t believe in luck. I believe that success comes when preparation meets opportunity”.

(11) POSSIBILITIES

Great entrepreneurs have been considered to always see opportunities and possibilities even in adverse business conditions. Leaders are not always the first to see opportunities; they are simply the first to see and seize opportunities. Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulties in every opportunity”. No matter the difficulties and failures, an entrepreneur’s sight for possibilities must never be blurred. Henry Ford said, “Failure is an opportunity to start all over, more intelligently”.

(12) PARTNER

In this new wave of technology, you can’t do it all yourself, you have to form alliances. Every entrepreneur needs allies, and the bigger the responsibility, the more allies he needs.  If you can run the company a bit more collaboratively, you get a better result, because you have more bandwidth and checking and balancing going on.Bill Gates, the richest man in the world and the co-founder of the Microsoft Corporation has a secret about Microsoft, “Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning”.

(13) POSITIONING/STRATEGIC POSITIONING

Not every environment accepts the progress you want to put across. Positioning gives a business market advantage. The bible says, “A house that is built upon a hill cannot be hidden”, this is also true for a business, there is a place for every business. Right positioning will ultimately give a business a competitive edge. One of the greatest miracles in product marketing is rebranding- just a little change in product content and packaging can cause an awesome change in demand!

Positioning is not only about location, there are place positioning, product positioning, market positioning, price positioning, brand positioning and promotion positioning. In the parable of the sower in Mathew 13:1-8, the master illustrated one of the greatest secrets of entrepreneurship- there is no bad seed, only bad soil!

(14) PROMOTION

P.T Barnum said, “Without Promotion something terrible happens ……..Nothing”. When you try to market to everyone, you reach no one, promotion helps in locating our target or prospective customers.  Promotion is more than advertising. It encompasses advertising and all other methods that are organized to advance the state of a product. Promotion can be defined as an activity, such as a sale or advertising campaign, designed to increase visibility or sales of a product but in a layman word, promotion helps to attract prospective customers. There are generally two types of promotion: Online and offline, the online involves social medias (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Tagged, Myspace etc.), E-mails, Adds on Search Engines, Podcasting, Blogs, Website while the offline include: in store marketing, flyers etc.

(15) PRIORITY (The Pareto Principle)

The pattern underlying the Pareto (80/20) principle was discovered in 1897, by Italian Economist Vifredo Pareto (1848 – 1923). The principle helps us to manage our resources and time more effectively. It embodies the fact that 80% of output result from 20% inputs; it is therefore reasonable that we invest more of our time and resources on the 20% that gives 80% output and invest less time and resources on 80% inputs that gives 20% output. The principle is also referred to as the rule of the “vital few” and trivial many”. In business, products can be grouped into “vital few” and “trivial many”. There is 20% of the product that gives 80% income; a good entrepreneur must prioritize to give more attention, time, promotion and resources to the product that are the “selling point”.

(16) PRAYER

He who succeeds in his prayer life will succeed in life. He who fails in his prayer life will fail in life, these were the words of Mike Murdock. An entrepreneur must not make God the last resort. Failure in many business endeavors is a prayer failure; prayerlessness is leaving life to chance. John Wesley said, “We can do great things when we pray; but we can do nothing great until we pray”

Don't Dream It, Be It.......