The True Sense Of Leadership

Just like life that is not measured by how long we live but by how well we live, leadership also is not the measurement of the length of leading period but the impact created within this period. Having said that, I want to consider the term 'Leadership' and what it truly represent and not what is practiced nowadays.

Leadership does not begin when one is given the mandate to head a particular group or an organization, but just like charity, it begins at home. Peter Drucker chipped in that

'Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.’

In line with the assertion above, a leader from the onset is that selfless individual with great possessions of building others and ensuring that others have been taken cared of first before thinking about himself. This quality is almost absent in our leaders .

The people we refer to as leaders are not what we say they are or let me say what they claim to be. These people should be referred to as traders because they use their money to purchase votes so as to maximize their profit when given the mandate to head a particular sector of the economy. Why not ask yourself, where were these people before the election period and why are they showering you with some miserable amount of money before the election day and not after the election day? You will understand that they have transformed leadership to an investment for the future and not just an ordinary investment but a greedy one at that. The standing fact here is, these people who were already rich strive harder to make themselves richer at the detriment of the people who they blindfolded and cajoled to voting for them.

For this to end, there is need for reformation. A leader is that person who is willing to serve and not waiting to be served. A leader is one who lead to people to prosperity and not one who lead people away from it but has a mindset of returning to it so that he and he alone will benefit while the rest suffer. A leader is selfless not selfish. These are leadership qualities and we all possess them but many people have traded it for greed, embezzlement, dishonesty and all manner of negative values.

We have enough resources to develop ourselves yet we lack leaders who are willing and able to channel these resources to the appropriate places for maximum utilization and management. How then shall we grow and develop. There is an urgent need for change but the twist is “That change begins with you”.