World Leaders (photo credit: google)
"The issue of leadership has become an unending topic for debaters and arguments not only in our nation but all over the world. The world is groaning under the weight of bad and cruel leadership but we can make our society enjoyable by not joining the bandwagon".
by Ozioma L. Ebirim
A leader according to the
new Webster’s dictionary of the English language is ‘someone who acts as a
guide, a directing head of chief’. A leader must have a vision and know where
he is taking his people to. Success does not dwell in isolation. You are really
successful when you produce more success. The ability to have followers who
believe in your leadership qualities makes you a good leader.
The difference between
successful and unsuccessful people is action. While successful people take
action, it is not so with unsuccessful people. They have dreams as well which
lie only in their bosom. They are always full of ideas that never get
implemented. God endowed everybody with talents but most people have allowed
theirs to remain dormant. Success is planned. Nobody stumbles on success. It is
a culmination of positive activities or processes one has worked on or gone
through. Successful people have clarity of values. They know what they want and
set their priorities aright.
Rev. Martin Luther King (picture credit: google)
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome
defines success as ‘impacting your world with the investment of your
personality’. He goes further to say it is ‘influencing the world around you to
think like you and to aspire to your inspiration’.
Transformational
leadership is where people’s lives are changed from the inside out. The
leadership challenge in Nigeria has remained an issue because leaders have not
effectively engaged their minds to be able to design policies to enrich the
lives of the led. The recycling of obsolete procedures and systems that have
achieved nothing over the years has posed a great challenge to a better life
for the citizenry and until they are discarded, the issue of genuine
development will remain a theory and topic for heated debates and round table
discussions for a long time to come.
A successful person
invests in himself to be able to impact others positively. It is when one has
invested enough in himself that he can have the capability to change another.
The world system is not really fashioned for anyone’s failure. People have been
known to do well even in very bad economies. Successful people do not trade
blames. They rise to the occasion when it is demanded. They take responsibility
for their actions and blame no one for their failures (if any). Success is
achieved not only through vision but ideas and strength. As a person, you have
something to offer because god made you in his image and likeness and imbued
you with the seed of greatness. Your ability to harness that inner strength
will mark you out as a leader with a difference. If what you have is locked up,
you are no different from the one who lights a candle and puts it under a
table. The light has failed to illuminate the darkness it was meant to. You
deny your world the opportunity of appreciating what God has endowed you with
if you are not walking in line with his purpose for your life. It is not enough
to come into the world or live long; but living too champion a noble and worthy
cause and leaving your footprints in the sands of time.
We should let our works be
such that will serve God’s purpose. You begin to fail when you compare yourself
to someone else. That another person is succeeding doesn’t make you a failure
because you are gifted differently. You are a real failure when you refuse to
listen to the spirit of God in you to know what you have been called to do.
You’ve got to use what you have to influence your world. Your path through life
may have been tortuous or probably you grew up with a disability but all that
is not enough to explain away the non-pursuance or total negligence of your
dreams and aspirations. The road to failure is strewn with excuses.
People who compare
themselves to others are visionless and lack taste. They live a life of mere
existence. Successful people look for solutions to problems. They are not
afraid to take up challenges because they are aware they have what is takes to
meet and overcome them. Success births success. Everyone created by God has
something to offer this world, never bury your talent like the servant whom his
master left with a talent but who out of sheer greed did nothing with it. He
failed to realise that greed is a robber of integrity, diminishes one’s
achievements and terminates destinies. In as much as we are living in a world
where it is becoming increasingly difficult to live a good life, you must be up
and doing with your divine endowments and leave the world better than you met
it for the generation following.
You are a success when you
influence the world around you to think like you. Like, they say, begets like.
This becomes possible only when you have made concrete and beneficial deposits
in you. There is no gainsaying the fact that you can only give what you have.
The reason the Nigerian society cannot boast of enduring development even with
the enormous resources at her disposal is because those in leadership positions
have not imbibed this notion. You become eminently qualified to draw from your
wealth of experience and affect others in your sphere of contact positively
when you make adequate deposits in you, otherwise, you may not have anything
reasonable or remarkable to offer and you’ll make no impact.
Leadership suffers when
the leader is bereft of ideas, lacks insight and is clueless about what means,
strategies to employ to improve the lot of his followers.
Anyone can be a leader,
including you
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