(The mystery key that distinguishes leaders from followers)
By Saki T Nikodemus
IN my earlier articles on this critical subject of true leadership, I alluded to the fact that there is nothing as elusive as leadership. Everyone talks about it, but only a few really understand it. Most people want it, but only a few really achieve it.
Somebody once observed: “All the money in the world can make you rich, and all the power in the world can make you strong, but these things can never make you a leader”. You can inherit a fortune, but never leadership.
Yet, there is no greater need in our 21st Century world than effective and competent leadership. I still maintain that the number one need all over the world today is that of leadership. Perhaps the time has come for us to seriously ask ourselves the hard questions about leadership. The quality of the question normally will dictate the quality of the answer. It is therefore imperative that we ask the right questions, if we want the right answers, when dealing with the aspect of leadership.
The right questions would be, what is true leadership, and why is true leadership so difficult to find and where are the true leaders, anyway?
As a passionate scholar of leadership for many years, I have read numerous books, articles and research papers on the subject of leadership. In addition, I attended countless seminars, conferences, summits dealing with leadership development, yet I was never able to identify, define or fully comprehend the mystery key that clearly distinguished the leader from the follower (and I am sure that I am not the only one who had to deal with this mystery key). It was however not until a few years ago, during my personal leadership studies that I began to gain insight into this mystery of leadership.
This article therefore is purposed to help us locate that missing link, and reveal the hidden secret to the ellusiveness of leadership.
Simply put, I discovered that the thinking or philosophy of a leader is what separates him or her from the followers. I also found that true leaders are distinguished by a very unique mental attitude that emanates from an internalized discovery of self, which creates a strong, positive, and confident self-concept and self-worth.
I have come to call this unique mental attitude the essence of true leadership, and hence the title, “The Quest for True Leadership”. I am strongly persuaded that it is an attitude that influences the entire life of the leader and controls his or her response to life, such as crises, disappointments, failures, confrontation, opposition, challenges and stress. In essence, it is perhaps this attitude that gives the leader a sense of confidence, faith and belief in possibilities.
I believe that fully understanding the heart of true leadership is perhaps the key to developing genuine leaders. Because our perception about leadership will define the way we manifest and display leadership qualities in our lives.
So, to return to our questions, what is true leadership? In response to this question, it is vital to understand that leadership is not an “exclusive club” for the few who were “born with it”.
It goes without saying that every human has the instinct and capacity for leadership. Every human, including you, reading this article right now, is wired for leadership, and possess the raw material needed for leadership expression. The only problem, and perhaps tragedy, is that most of us do not have the courage nor the will to cultivate it. All of us, posses the potential to lead, but most have lost the passion and drive to lead, and therein lies the greatest tragedy of life.
I mentioned this before and wish to reiterate again, many of us often confuse the position of leadership with the disposition (or nature/character) of true leadership. We keep equating position to leadership. It should get into our psyche that these two are not the same, because you do not need necessarily a position to be a leader. And this is where we keep going wrong. This also explains the reason why most of us are erroneously motivated by positions.
Please, understand this, no matter what position one may be given; status in an organisation does not automatically create leadership. What a position can do at its best for the individual is to give the individual the environment and opportunity to discover and manifest his/her leadership potential. But it is not the position that makes one a leader. True leadership therefore is one’s internal disposition, which relates to a sense of purpose, self-worth and self-concept.
Secondly, this one is related to the above-mentioned. Some of us actually believe that the title makes the leader. However, I am pretty sure that we have all seen many people who have been placed in prominent positions with impressive titles, yet failed miserably. And in case you are wondering why they failed miserably, I will tell you why. Because they haven’t understood that true leadership is manifested in performance and results, and not just in labels.
Thirdly, there are those of us who often confuse leadership with the ability to control others through manipulation and intimidation. This is often done through manipulating people’s/followers emotions and playing on their fears and needs. But true leadership is a product of inspiration, and definitely not manipulation. Unless you are able to inspire people, you will never be able to lead them, because true leadership is pure inspiration.
Fourthly, there are those who believe that leadership is education/qualification. History is pregnant with evidences that this conviction is simply not true. Most of the greatest leaders that history has ever produced were not necessarily educated (at least not by our contemporary definition of education).
I believe the problem is that leadership has become a role one plays, rather than a life one leads. Contemporary leaders are attempting to divorce their personal lives from their public responsibilities, and their personal standards from their public lives. If a leader tells you, whatever I am doing in my personal life is none of your concern, then that leader has no understanding of the law and heart of true leadership. The sad reality is that, to many, leadership is an act and not a calling.
It should therefore be understood that true leadership goes far beyond the mechanics of most of the approaches that pervade our leadership programs today. I still maintain that true leadership has more to do with discovering a sense of meaning and significance in life. This distinction separates the leadership quality of passion from the hunger or lust for power. True leaders do not seek power but are driven by a passion to achieve a noble cause. True leaders are motivated by a strong desire to serve, and not to be served. Perhaps the shortest distance to true leadership is service.