Leadership

LEVELS OF LEADERSHIP

Leadership is the ability to achieve worthwhile goals through the cooperation of others. A successful leader is someone who is able to move a group from just being inspired to being motivated. Everything rises and falls on leadership. All human beings are potential leaders. Leaders are born first, before they are made. There are however five levels of leadership:

Level 1 - Leadership by Position: Positional leadership is usually an appointment to occupy an office. It is when you have to use title to buttress your leadership. It is the least form of leadership.

Level 2 – Leadership by Permission: This is when people love you and give you permission to lead them. When you have touched people’s heart, it becomes easy for you to ask for their hands.

Level 3 – Leadership by Production: This is when people gather together for the sake of achieving something. The more you are able to get result through people, the more influence you get.

Level 4 – People Development: The ability to be somewhere and still be everywhere is leadership simply because you have been able to plant people. This makes you omnipresent. When you develop people in their time of lack, you endear their loyalty towards you.

Level 5 – Personhood: In this case, you don’t need a title to lead simply because you have become an institution. You become an institution by being a principled leader.

 LAWS OF LEADERSHIP 

The secret of success is the ability to study laws, understand them and then co-operate with them. There are two kinds of laws: - Natural and constitutional laws. Constitutional laws are coined out of natural laws. To succeed in leadership there are laws to obey and they include:

Law of Integrity: True leaders are honest with themselves. You are six persons in one. 1. You are who you are. 2. You are who you think you are. 3. You are who your subordinates think you are. 4. You are who your colleagues and peers think you are. 5. You are who your superiors think you are. 6. The way the masses see you. Your ability to bring all these personalities into one to bridge the gap is Integrity. Your character is your asset.

Law of Personal Effectiveness: This is what puts a limit on your leadership potentials. Jim Rohn says “Don’t work hard on your job, work hard on yourself”. Know your track record.

Law of Respect: People naturally gravitate towards people they perceive as being stronger than them. Without result, there could be no respect. You need to have results to command respect.

Law of Magnetism: You attract what you are and not necessarily what you want in leadership.

Law of Foresight: Your future is in the picture you can see right now. It is as far as you can see that you can get.

Law or Realism: Leaders deal with situations as they are, not as they wish them to be. Your knowledge and your ‘know how’ are the keys to the 21st century. The more accurate information and knowledge you acquire and apply to achieve results, the more valuable you become. Enterprises are built by wise planning, made strong by commonsense and profit wonderfully well by keeping abreast the facts.

Law of Optimism: Leaders are incurable optimists. Thomas Edison experimented on his idea of a light bulb a thousand times before it came through. Nick Vujicic did not allow his physical defects deter him from being a motivational speaker. What are your real and perceived obstacles? Are they human, material, spiritual, environmental or physical? You can look beyond them and be optimistic.

Law of Timing: Leaders must always sort and create trends for success in life. Effective leaders do a P.E.S.T Analysis to ascertain their resource level and readiness.

Law of Momentum: Find what works and focus on what you can do well. In this law, focus more on giving not getting even in relationships.

Law of Priorities: Leadership is all about thinking and strategizing. It involves managing relationships not activities. Leaders do first things first by applying the Pareto’s principle.  

Law of Resilience: Leaders know how to bounce back from setbacks. Against all odds, what are you going to do?

Law of Courage: Your ability to make decisions and to act boldly determines your level of success in leadership. Self confidence is a prerequisite to being courageous. 75% of self confidence comes from within comprising of your thoughts and feelings. Only 25% fortification comes from the external environment.

Law of Independence: Leaders think for themselves. They listen to the people they lead but the responsibility to make decisions solely rests on them.

Law of Group Effectiveness: The quality of a group or organization can never be better than that of the individual members. In a winning team, there is a catalyst. The strength of the team is determined by the weakest link.  

Law of Security: Only secure leaders give power to others.

Law of Connection: Leaders are sensitive to the needs and feelings of their followers and make efforts to connect emotionally.

Law of Reproduction: It takes a leader to raise another leader through the process of succession planning.

Law of multiplication: Leadership is the ability to discover or attract skills, develop it and deploy it. To add growth, raise followers; to multiply growth raise leaders.

Law of Inner Circle: A leader’s effectiveness is limited by the quality of people closest to him.

Law of Excellence: A leader must be committed to continuous improvement. Breaking records, setting goals and achieving them.

Law of Legacy: The ability to institutionalize your values to the point that it can live on long after you are gone. Good leaders leave behind books, journals, systems, culture, structure, infrastructures etc.