TODAY ON FRANKLY SPEAKING – BECOMING A GREAT LEADER 16-09-2017
occurred because someone decided to
take the lead and influence others to
pursue an agenda, resist an order or
transform a process. The social nature of
mankind is to always have a leader – one
person that will take the lead and others
would follow. For any great success to
occur, leadership is essential.
I believe there are so many issues in our
lives, and societies many aren’t
comfortable with and we’d very much
want to see drastic improvements. But in
our small corners and conservative
worlds, we believe we are too
insignificant to influence or drive a major
change. We look at ourselves and feel
too small and insignificant to make any
significant impact.
You’ll agree with me there are some
Nigerians the rest of us hold responsible
for everything that goes wrong or right in
this country. They are popularly referred
to as our leaders. In counting, they are
probably less than a hundred but every
issue bothering on our nationhood, the
remaining 190 million of us hold these
less than 100 people responsible. We
also popularly believe they are the most
influential.
Think with me this morning, how many of
these very influential national leaders
were born with the positions and titles
and powers they hold today? How many
of them even come from influential or
privilege backgrounds? How many of
them were born famous, popular or
prominent? How many of them inherited
the power, authority, name and positions
they hold today from their parents?
Probably none, or extremely few.
To console ourselves and justify our
insignificance, many of us choose to
believe these powerful leaders must have
indulged in very ominous and mean
dealings to become powerful and
influential, it is not always the case my
friend, many of them worked very hard to
earn their positions of leadership and
great influence.
This is not to justify corruption or
mismanagement, but I assure you even
the very corrupt leaders being exposed
and arrested today worked very hard to
get to that position where they
eventually had access to our common
wealth to steal it. They didn’t just stroll
in there.
Today, I’ll sincerely want to admonish
the younger generation to quit
complaining and judging and make up
their minds to take over leadership
through hard work so as to subsequently
take on key positions and fix things.
For Audio Version Click here
Too many young people complain bitterly
about things not working well, yet they
lack the will to work very hard, take over
as leaders and manage the country
better. Many forty year olds in Nigeria
today don’t even have a copy of the
Nigerian constitution. Very few can
correctly sing the second stanza of the
national anthem and many hardly study
the yearly appropriation and fiscal plan.
They have no idea what governance is all
about, they do not understand public
service, citizenship or nation building;
they have no idea about public
leadership, or true knowledge of our
history, they don’t understand
governance or contemporary politics.
Many of the youth want the current
leaders out of the way today yet have
refused to develop their own capacities
to effectively take over as leaders. Oh,
it’s so easy to criticise but if you’re
appointed the governor of your own state
today, how will your first 100 days in
office look like? What will be your
dominant thought? How to develop the
state or how to quickly enrich yourself
too? Let your conscience judge.
Ladies and gentlemen, all over the world,
public leadership is not just handed over
to the next generation, it is earned by
younger people who work hard, have the
knowledge, have developed capacity and
are deserving of these sensitive public
leadership positions.
As a career coach I’m frequently exposed
to young people in their thirties and
forties who lack the capacity to lead a
team of just six people in their place of
employment. They lack the discipline,
maturity, humility and capacity to
achieve results through just six people,
yet they are experts at criticizing, judging
and condemning every leader in every
nation all over the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, all the young
people, I believe it is time for your shift.
It is time you shift from being a critique
to a builder. It is time you take the lead.
It is time you also decide to do the work
and earn the role of influence and power
to make happen the change you desire
to see.
How do you do this, how do you start;
from where do you start? Permit me to
share with you today, six factors to
consider and apply in order to become a
great leader. I believe we all know
leadership is not just occupying a
position of power or authority, leadership
is the ability to influence people. To
successfully influence others and make
them buy into your vision and support
your ambition, diligently harken to,
consider and apply the following traits:
1. Set your PRIORITIES – great leaders
don’t live regular lives. They don’t live
like everyday people. Great leaders set
their priorities in life. They decide that
one thing they want to do and commit at
least 80% of their day to doing it. Great
leaders give up pleasure for purpose and
priorities. Their time is extremely
valuable and they dedicate themselves to
a course until they become distinguished
as a master in that field of focus. To be
a great leader, set your priorities.
2. CREATING IDENTITY. Great leaders
don’t flock with the crowd. They create a
different, unique and compelling identity
for themselves using different but
appealing instruments. Excellence in
certain skills, capacities, abilities or
achievements. Great leaders are known
for being excellent at something. Fela
Anikulapo Kuti, Music, Wole Soyinka,
Literature, Gani Fawhennmi Lawyer/
Human right activist, E.A. Adeboye
Religion. Great leaders distinguish
themselves and create compelling
identity through excellent performance at
something. By so doing, they earn the
credentials for great influence.
3. INCLUDING OTHERS. Great leaders
are fantastic salesmen. They do not keep
their dreams or ambition to themselves.
Their everyday task is to include others.
They seek every avenue and opportunity
to sell their idea, vision and ambition to
everyone they meet. They are passionate
about including others – getting them
involved and securing buy in.
4. SEE BEYOUND YOUR MENTOR –
Great leaders usually have more than one
mentor. They hardly want to be like any
of their mentors, they actually have
dreams bigger than any achieved by their
mentors. They pick the strength in every
mentor they have, add it to theirs and
build a dream much greater than that of
the mentors. Great leaders don’t want to
be a copy of a revealed glory, they want
to reveal their own glory. Great leaders
dream beyond their mentors.
5. HAVE DEEP CONVICTIONS – Great
leaders are not superficial in life. They
are deeply convinced about what they
want and are willing to die for that which
they believe. Opposition will come,
challenges, betrayal, tough times,
oppression, loneliness and even rejection.
Great leaders never give up. They die
there; they are not cowards, they don’t
let go of their dreams.
6. HAVE ETERNAL VALUES – Great
leaders see beyond this life. They see
beyond earthly rewards, they are mostly
driven by eternal values. They fear their
maker, they know they are accountable
on judgment day, they believe they are
on assignment and they fear God more
than they fear man. Great leaders do
things more because of God than
because of man. They have eternal
values.
Ladies and gentlemen, all the young
people in the house this morning, enough
criticism, judging, complaining and
lamenting about leadership. It’s time you
shift your grounds, don’t just talk,
become a great leader too, apply all you
need, be a leader too, let’s fix these
problems, let’s take responsibility.
CONSULTANT: Saint Gabriel Concept
Comments
Post a Comment