“Gideon, I don’t know how you do it but trust me, if you could convince these highly intellectual persons to work with you and buy into your vision so much that they live it like it’s theirs, you are a true leader. It’s not about your outside. It wells up from the inside. Don’t lose it.”
I learnt my first leadership lesson from those words which have stuck since then. Leadership, to me, is a synonym for influence. It is your ability to communicate a vision and have people follow it even without compulsion. It is your ability to attract people; it is your ability to make people see things through your eyes, feel things through your pores and perceive things through your own senses. Leadership is magnetic!
Every DAY has a morning, afternoon and evening
You notice that mistakes you make in the morning most times could be excused or correctable.
In the afternoon, you could make a mistake but it might be lethal and it's even worse in the evening because the day is over and you can only look forward for the next day
So your morning phase is when you have no leadership Position......
In that phase, you need to practice as Much as you can and develop yourself while waiting for the opportunity.Here, you're free to perform roles that bring solution to problems
I had a time when all I could do was just watch from the sidelines as a student but at that time I particularly gave myself to students and tried to be a part of getting someone's government to work.I gave the president then the respect he deserved while also politely telling him things I didn't agree with
To some extent, I was very close to the administration as I was chief press secretary, I would watch as every other student would walk into the office to sit on the president's seat.
It was a concern to me but it probably didn't mean anything to them. I couldn't sit there. I dreaded it because I have never been president
The government of the day became unpopular because the office of the president was disrespected and it went on that way till I became the faculty president and the office simply just gained respect not because of the rules I set but I felt it was from my time when I served there as chief press secretary
It simply flowed from my morning of leadership
We're in constant danger as a nation when people who have never learnt to obey are given the right to command
On the AFTERNOON of Leadership, this is when you assume the leadership role
At the risk of sounding immodest, my first thoughts as President of my faculty was how to make a difference. I didn't just want to exist
After my very tough elections, I had 150,000 left on me. All I could think of was how to assure the people that voted me in that I won't fail.
I put in everything to ensuring I added value. I and the team gave the office of the president a new look and we got a few things started. That gave me the support of friends and foes and we were headed towards creating value
So on the afternoon of leadership, you need to be Passionate and very innovative while not also forgetting the idea of BRANDING
Innovation is simply new thinking. Do new things or possibly do old things in a new way