Zimpapers Logo

oneself and being more of yourself.
Leadership is all about being real, being true to yourself and to those around you.
Wisdom dictates that, “only by being true to and with yourself can you allow others to be the best they can be”.
When a leader is not true to him or herself, he or she will always be an impediment to the growth of those who follow.
Being true to yourself means getting in touch and accepting some realities of your life and of life in general.
Some of these realities are difficult to swallow, for example the reality that every leader is replaceable.
This is why Elijah had to mentor Elisha, why Jesus had to mentor the disciples.
The failure to mentor is the ultimate failure of leadership. A leader had to work on his or her replacement.
Remember, true leaders do not create followers, but they create more leaders. An irreplaceable leader is a selfish leader.
A leader is judged by the quality of people they leave behind. No matter how good a leader is, they will die one day and somebody has to fit into their shoes and the success of the successor is the ultimate yardstick for the predecessor.
If your successor fails, the predecessor is a failure too. Leaders have to strive to produce successors that are better than them that carry their legacy and mentorship is the vehicle to achieve this.
Leadership is when you become more you. It’s the expression of you and when that expression inspires and gets people to do what they normally wouldn’t, then your leadership has come full circle.
Leadership is very individual as much as it is collective. Getting in touch with you is an achievement.
Many leaders are not real to themselves and that is why they fail. A leader has to understand their feelings and mood and how they affect them and those around them.
Leadership is about aligning yourself for positive impact, impact that delivers the desired results. Leadership is not just about influence, it’s about positive influence, so a leader’s intentions have to be right. Influence with the wrong intention results in ineffective leadership.
A leader has to be so much in touch with his or her emotions. Many leaders fail because of lack of emotional intelligence.
Many leaders fail because they lack self-awareness, social skills and self-control.
Some leaders do not even understand themselves and this results in confusion and inconsistencies, both results in ineffective leadership.
The moment people see a leader’s confusion, leadership has been defeated, that is why leaders are supposed to be decisive and not vacillate and show instability.
People skills are critical for effective leadership. Lack of people skills is the reason why many professionals and technocrats, top performing and with loads of industry knowledge often fail when they are appointed CEOs.
Leadership is a social activity not a mathematical, accounting, technical, mechanical, marketing or any other professional bias.
Most CEOs I have come across have an accounting background and rightfully so because finance directors or managers tend to assume CEO position once they become vacant.
However, after assuming such posts one should stop being a chartered accountant.
I say this because I have noted many such CEOs are obsessed with number crunching than leading.
It is professional bias and it’s very normal but it’s not effective nor does it make one a good leader.
Remember a leader is someone who knows very few of everything, a leader is a generic professional with no specialisation or bias.
A leader is a marketer, an HR practitioner, a buyer, customer service personnel and an engineer.
A leader is a bit of everything that happens at the organisation. Balance is important in leadership.
Good leadership proceeds from personal balance. An unstable person is seldom a good leader.
One has to have their feet on the ground. One’s character has to be strongly rooted on strong and stable principles and values.
An organisation’s values and culture usually proceed from the leader.
The leader is the first brand and if that brand is confused, everything gets confused.
Everything succeeds or fails on leadership. That is determining power of leadership and that is the reason why it should be always right because everything depends on it.
Whatever your experience, it’s a leadership factor both at personal and interpersonal level, the two levels of leadership.
Only when you understand yourself will you understand others. Only if you can control yourself, can you control others effectively.
Only when you are true to yourself will others do the same to you, by acknowledging your weaknesses, by asking for help, just by being honest and allowing others to really know you.
Sharing your fear does not show weakness, many people are proud and perish or live a life of worry so if you can help them you are courageous.
Leadership is not about behaving like a superhuman, it’s about connecting and connection only comes by being real, gone are the days of the hero leaders.
Leaders of today connect. Only if you accept and respect yourself can others respect you.
Only if you have confidence in yourself can people have confidence in you. Only if you can lead yourself can people delight in being led by you.
So leadership is about you inasmuch as it is about the people you lead, it’s very much personal as much as it is interpersonal.
Hope you were inspired. Till next week. Stay inspired and become the best leader you know. Be the best. Just be the best!
l Pascal Nyasha is a motivational speaker and leadership coach. He is the author of the inspirational book, “Reaching New Horizons’, and founder of The Leadership Clinic. Call: 0773 003 912 or e-mail: [email protected]. Connect with Pascal on facebook.