EXCELLENCE IN LEADERSHIP

Leadership in my own term is simply means management, to control, guidance, to have headship, and give direction to any group of people, individual and organization. Leadership is not in position but in disposition.

It is difficult to define a leader or leadership. There are probably as many definitions as there are leadership experts. Let us consider one definition by John Maxwell this.

“Leadership is influence. No more no less.” With this definition, John Maxwell makes the development and the maintenance of influence central issues, in fact, the only issues in leadership. Whoever has a level of influence on others is a leader. If he cultivates this influence well and puts it to use for the benefit of all, he becomes a good leader. That no man can lead beyond the level of his influence makes it necessary for a leader to keep expanding his sphere of influence to increase his scope of leadership.

If we are to agree with Maxwell, then everyone is a leader for everyone has an influence over some others. It may be easy for us to admit that politicians, celebrated movie stars, high profile businessmen and famous pastors are people of influence. And indeed, they are. But so are you. We may have different levels of influence, but we all have influence. And we all can grow our influence to increase our scope of leadership.

Great leaders are those with considerable influence. They do not rely on their position to lead. Your position of authority may elicit obedience – even fanatical obedience; but only your influence will make the people to follow you willingly and even go beyond the call of duty. A leader makes the people willingly do what they are not willing to do but are capable of doing.

Leadership, according to Prentice, is the discipline of deliberately exerting special influence within a group to move it towards goals of beneficial permanence that fulfils the group’s real needs.

The fact that leadership is a discipline means it can be learnt. It involves skills that can be acquired. It thrives on influence, which is deliberately exerted.

There is a community involved. Expectedly, the community has common goals. The goals must be such that are beneficial to the group, i.e., such as promote or enhance well-being of the group. The more noble the goals, the more significant the leadership. The group needs being met must be genuine needs that advance the cause of the group. Those who create false needs and set to meet them are not leaders.

This definition negates what we often refer to as leadership. Influence, not position, is what is paramount. You can be a husband by position and not the leader of your home because you do not have the influence needed to steer the home along the line of your goals. If your goals for your society are to advance your self-interests, then they fall short of “goals of beneficial permanence” Prentice is referring to. For example, if you want power so you can settle scores with the people that have offended you in the past; you are not a true leader. A leader’s vision transcends selfish interests. If you intentionally create confusion in your group and then turn around to lead the group out of that trouble, you are not meeting real needs. Hitler set out to meet false needs of the superiority of the German race to the rest of humanity. Because those were not the real German needs, he lost to genuine leaders who, out of concern for the real needs of their own people engaged relentless war against Hitler’s Germany.

Once a while, in the course of human history, a group of concerned men and women appears on the scene to make the difference in their generation. The Bible and history are replete with the emergence of such groups, which rose in difficult moments in their time to challenge the status quo, move to preserve their race, restore order to their society, embark on noble projects and mobilize their people toward a noble cause. These are the kind of leader I want to portray before you.

The world stood still as the Joseph generation mobilized a heathen nation to obey God, respond to His warning of a future world-wide famine, develop a divine plan to harness resources in times of abundance and manage an effective distribution system that saved humanity from collapse and ensured that the lineage of the Messiah was preserved.

The Joshua generation was an all-conquering army. An army with a divine agenda, enabled by the Captain of the hosts of God, ran roughshod over heathen nations, perpetuating the culture of their Jehovah and fulfilling prophecy of a home place for Israel.

A shepherd boy rose with a band of faithful men after the pollution of God's divine order to restore dignity to a despondent nation and provide an eternal throne for the Messiah. It was said of David that he "served his generation".

Nudged by a spirit of compassion for the misfortune of their people, the Nehemiah generation rose up to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, restored servant leadership, integrity, benevolent government and worship of the Jehovah.

Gideon and his small bound of men went out in the might of the Lord to sack armies mightier than them to free their people from the hands of the oppressors.

Twelve hapless men, called and empowered by the Man from Galilee, turned the world upside down.

When William Wilberforce and the famous Clapham sect rose up to oppose slave trade in the then decadent Great Britain, no one gave them a chance to succeed. Less than there decades after, these men, propelled by their faith and belief that all men are created equal, brought slave trade - the most lucrative industry in their time - on its knees.

Hebrew chapter 11 of the holy book ‘bible’ is a hall of fame of small groups of people challenged to take on causes that made the difference to their generations. "By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. They were too good for this world." Hebrews 11:33-36 (New Living Translation)

You are probably reading this because you are too good for this world. I firmly believe that such a time has come in the history of our dear Africa for men and women like you to arise and make the difference to our generation. Let's 'infest' this continent with our goodness virus.

I invite you to come and let's make the difference together. The continent is waiting for us.

INEVITABILITY OF LEADERS

In my more than 7 years of studying leadership and training leaders, I have come to this conclusion that leadership is the vehicle for change and development. Our society stands or falls on a leader. One of Nigeria’s literary giants has said the problem with Nigeria is leadership. It is so, not for Nigeria alone but for any other nation or indeed any group of people. The essential nature of leadership is in the fact that anywhere there is a collection of people; the need for leadership is established. Simply put, leadership becomes inevitable whenever there is a community of people.

To appreciate the value of a leader, think of a ship without a captain. Or an aeroplane without a pilot. Imagine a team of individually skilled footballers without a coach. The vehicle of any community will be on a free fall to anarchy without a skilled driver behind the wheel.

HOW TO GENERATE EXCELLENCE

There are many tools I have applied and taught people about when it come to the issue of excellence but due to space I will provide few out of what I have taught and I will still teach until everyone is properly align and accurate in our dealings with God and with other fellow human being.

To have excellence in Leadership it requires vision, skill and discipline

VISION

Vision is a vital tool a leader uses to navigate the stormy weather of change.

Edmund Haggai is of the opinion that leadership begins when a vision emerges. We should not expect any leader to lead without a vision, same way a pilot is not expected to fly without a plan. Your life and that of any community you are involved in are doomed without a clear vision. More than a plan, a vision is a mental picture of the future the leader or the visionary seeks to create. It is the ability to see the end before we reach it. It is the faculty of sight trained to see far beyond the present. Vision is a vivid insight into the future.

Myles Munroe bemoaned the lack of vision in our world. He said the greatest tragedy of human race is to have sight and not insight. It will be foolhardy not to agree with him. Our generation sees more than any other in history. The miracle of eye glasses and contact lenses has kept our eyes working even at old age. The trained ophthalmologists work hard to ensure we keep our sight and our faculty to see. We do this much for our physical eyes, which are desirable and good; but fail to do the same for our inner eyes with which we sight and create a beneficial future.

For this sin, we are paying very dearly in our nation. At every level of the society and in every institution, lack of clear vision is easily noticeable. It is demonstrated by the lack of enthusiasm to work, the general lack of direction and the commitment to maintenance rather than to change.

Clear vision inspires enthusiasm. We bring passion to a work whose end we know and the benefit of which we desire, especially when the vision meets real needs. Motivation comes naturally, driving away every form of complacency. Discipline is easy once there is a clear and beneficial end in sight. For a shared picture of a beneficial future, we will be willing to moderate our appetites, mobilize and focus our physical, mental and spiritual resources and endure any pain in the course of reaching the future. We cannot talk of extraordinary achievement without a vision. Such achievement that uplifts a community comes when people can see and identify with a desirable end that meets their real needs. With vision, work suddenly takes on meaning. Energies are directed and focused towards the desired goals and a faith arises that overcomes obstacles and challenges.

What are you doing to develop your insight? Your ability to see beyond now? You desire to live your life to the fullest may remain a wishful thinking until you start to develop a mental picture of the future. You can create your future and that of the society through the power of your vision.

SKILL

Skill is another vital tool that will guarantee excellence in leadership. Skill is guarantee for success in all your pursuit, lack of skill can kill any dream, organization or institution and lack of skill can frustrate any effort.

What is skill? It is the know-how, expertise and proficiency. It is the force behind anything calls excellence. When you learn the know-how of anything and the application of expertise the end result will be excellence. Excellence command natural followership that is what make successful leader.

Every destiny is at the mercy of skill, skill is the security of every dream. Remove skill and no dream survives, stop wishing a change, start working at one.

Skill naturally command the attention of people, you can not posses expertise without commanding attention. Imagine a motor mechanic, that every car he handles will still have to go to another mechanic, he will soon be out of business.

A wrist watch repairer, that open a wrist watch and can not put it together, everybody will say don’t move near him he is a destroyer, very soon he losses customer and he cannot pay for shop and have to close up and back in the village as a peasant farmer. It is not the devil that is at work, it is lack of skill.

Many organizations, company, churches, nation like Nigeria go into ruin not because of economic problem or demonic influence but because of terrible leadership without skill until God begin to work out a restoration process.

Many churches like our own church are crawling and experiencing backwardness and retrogress not because the devil comes in but because of lack of required leadership skill. On the altar of pulpit of leadership you hear leaders with crazy utterance, immature illustration, and provocative gesture. In this kind of church prayer and fasting go on unending yet things are not changing.

Nothing survives without skill. Survival of any people, organization and Institution is largely determined by the quality of his leadership. Doing thing alone does not make it works but doing it well is the only way.

I strongly advice everyone to dream of excellence to cultivate this great value called “Skill” because the expertise of a passenger cannot avert accident but it is the expertise of driver that does. The maturity of a wife is not enough to carry the home but that of the husband does.

 Leadership begins with leading yourself, it is a personality act and it begins with you.

A missionary said “Plant me in the desert today and I will raise a mega church there in a shortest time. You know why, because he has the know-how in his finger tips. Skill of shepherd hood in David that cause him to lead his nation successfully.