Leadership is the ability to make things happen. Given the increasing complexity of the world in which we live in, and the enormous demands placed on leaders, I believe these seven tools will help you maximize your leaderability.
Vision
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” – Proverbs 29: 18
Vision as a picture of the future a leader has in mind which inspires him and he shares it with others for them to feature in bringing it to pass. Being a leader requires you to have a clear vision of the future and being able to communicate it passionately and clearly to others.
Leadership success begins with vision. Walt Disney envisioned a place people can come and have fun, Todd Nielsen thought of a place where people can come together to learn and share their leadership views, and Martin Luther King, jr., dreamed of a world where everyone is equal.
You must endeavor to create a compelling vision, clarify it and market it properly for people to buy-in. The success of your leadership is tied to the actualization of your vision.
Passion
Passion is essential for effective leadership. I have observed great leaders in corporate, religious, academic, political and social organizations, one thing they have in common is that they are very passionate with what they believe in.
Ralph Waldo Emerson rightly said, “Passion is one of the most powerful engines of success. Nothing great was ever achieved without passion.” Leadership is a marathon and passion is the energy you need to finish fine.
Your passion is your passport to progress; make it right.
Confidence
Firm belief in yourself is a key to being a successful leader anytime. It helps you go the way and show the way. Douglas McArthur painted a good picture of it when he said, “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.”
Confidence is a fundamental basis of leadership. It helps you to stand your ground during challenging times. Self-confidence is not magic; it can be developed.
Communication
To share your vision, inspire others, and sell your products and services, you need good communication skills. To excel in leadership, you must master the art of effective communication. Great leaders are great communicators.
Don’t just communicate; connect!
Communication styles differ from leader to leader. Your body language and words should be topnotch. As a leader, your communication must be clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete and courteous because your ability to communicate and connect effectively raises the bar on your leadership.
Compassion
Compassion is one of the silent but principal qualities of a leader. One grave mistakes people make in life is asking for hands while they have not touched a heart. A leader should be compassionate.
Compassion is the people-centric mindset of a leader that inspires him to aspire and perspire to help others become better. This is not weakness but, strength.
A compassionate leader loves his people and this motivates them to give their best to make his leadership a success. To be a great leader you must shift from “I” to “We” mentality because this helps you show kindness, care, fairness, genuineness and gain trust, respect, loyalty and followership.
Focus
In a world that is constantly accelerating, many people find it difficult to stay focused, we spend energy worrying about yesterday or tomorrow. Leaders are humans and at times they encounter overwhelming situations which can make them go off-course but, focus helps them comeback on track and win in the race. Focus helps you stay true to your leadership goals and discriminate yourself from things that will militate against your success.
FOCUS = Follow On Course Until Successful
Honesty
The quality or fact of being honest gives life to your leadership. Honesty is a veritable tool in building trust between leaders and
followers. Honesty is one of the great characteristics of effective leaders. This is one quality that is lacking in Nigeria politics and
leadership.
Without honesty one cannot lead with integrity. One place some leaders miss opportunity to display honesty is in handling mistakes. Being honest doesn’t mean you are weak but, it shows you are morally strong. Honesty is a virtue and a mark of
higher-life. It’s a key to becoming a leader of repute.
Leadership is not title but, result. The tools in this toolkit are the arsenal you need to move yourself from a common to an uncommon leader.
Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
About Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
These are great “nice to have features” in someone who is called a leader. BUT, I fear, underneath the quotes of vision, compassion and honesty we have a style of leadership that lies, micromanages and blames failures on all but themselves.
Hiring of good people is no longer a style but a strategy that is used to move a company towards being acquired or sold to a bigger version of themselves because they are no longer able to be mobile enough to do the job themselves.
People that can no longer issue a purchase order because it has too many steps up front or companies that are constantly reducing a supplier base and yet force their supplier base to be the banker to them by issuing quotes that allow 90 and 120 day payment programs WHILE the supplier carries inventory in finished goods for them in case of a bubble in business.
Old leaders would not do this. They treated people and the people within their suppliers as valuable and necessary to their success.
Now vision has blinders. Now honesty delays payments even after 90 or 120 days by stating that an invoice was not sent to the right place or was incorrect and yet during this whole time they expedited and or pushed out deliveries.
The main tool on this Swiss knife is a bottle opener that only opens the bottle of compassion when it suits them.
This creative, constructive, and informative … well done IFEANYI.
This is a powerful and excellent piece of work. It is filled with positive truths that is guaranteed to bring positive transformational results . This is simply the best tools on Leadership that I have ever read. “Don’t ask for hands without touching a heart.”
Wonderful + beautiful wisdom from the heart of a great soul. Shine on!
With the right usage of the contents of this toolkit, am on top of the world. Thanks for sharing this with humanity.
Great and lovely thoughts from a young great soul. I salute you brother, keep inspiring and being a leadership torch.
Truly timeless tools, I will always live by this Hinovelty wisdom.
Those are the qualities a leader cannot do without because each is necessary for the other to have its effect. A leader without confidence can’t focus on his vision with passion and compassion being the driving force.
Thanks for sharing.
Oga N.K. David, thank you for your inspiring comment. More grace to you.
Yea! In our world today, true leadership is wrongly defined and I believe Ifeanyi Enoch Onouha had made a great outline here about who fits to be fixed as a leader or not. As an experienced icon of leadership, this post attributes to the facts that he’s passionate about redeeming lost leaders into the light of realizing their leadership roles and optimizing them!
I live in a society where people define leadership with reference to age, affluence, ethnicity, lineage and status…. leaving behind the true virtues such as vision, mission, passion, loyalty, integrity, honesty, confidence, communication, consistency etc… I think it’s our utmost need to keep stressing on these points everyday in order to redeem our society from the doom of ignorance! Thumbs up Ifeanyi!
Thank you Israelmore Ayivor, we have been called into the ministry of transforming lives positively.
Am happy you made out time to be here to partner with me in this ministry. Together, we can do much more. God bless you brother.
Great wisdom from a great soul. Shine on!
We like the wisdom shared in this post. Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha, you are really a light to this generation and next. We are happy to learn from this ageless sagacity you shared.
Thanks for adding value to life of people! If the generation we re in will recover, it must begin by men like you #recovering wasting potentials. Leaders re those who live their lives as well as other people’s lives. They re like a tree with many branches hosting may birds. Once the tree îs cut down the birds fly away. You’re channels through which God îs blessing His people. Thank you sir
Enjoyed your post thanks Ifeanyi. What is particularly important to me is compassion. I believe it’s incredibly important for a leader to show compassion, to really care and empathise with his/her people. As best you can, you treat and respect them as you would your family.
You are right on point Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha. If we have the vision then we are able to follow through to accomplish our goals. Passion is that driving desire that guides us along the way. You must have confidence in your self and be honest with your self and others too. All that you mentioned are great leadership qualities……..
Inspiration diva thank you for your inspiring comment. Am grateful you squeezed out time from your busy schedule to be here. More grace to you!
Wonderful post Ifeanyi. “Leadership success begins with vision.” Could not agree more!
Very useful. Self awareness with empathetic social relationship and we feeling can help create enabling environment. Thanks a lot.
Thank you great soul for your comment. I appreciate!
Hello Ifeanyi.
Thank you for this inspiring post. You have clearly defined the critical behaviors of leadership – and you have included so many great thoughts.
– “Leadership is a marathon and passion is the energy you need to finish fine.” This is a great representation of the leadership journey.
– “One grave mistakes people make in life is asking for hands while they have not touched a heart.” You speak of the emotional linkage of leadership. Goes along with the adage, “people don’t care what you know unless they know that you care.”
I have the honor of introducing self-leadership concepts to teenagers in the next couple of weeks. I will definitely have your post with me as my guide. A great article!
All the best,
Susan
Thank you dame Susan for your wonderful and encouraging comment.
God bless you!
Excellent post – thank you very much. So much of leadership is personal – not tactical direction / task setting. I very much like Covey’s description of leadership in The 8th Habit ‘Leadership is when you can communicate someone’s worth so clearly to them, they begin to see it in themselves’.
It is interesting and unfortunate however, in a lot of cases, that the old industrial management leadership mindset is still so strong in our hyper-connected, ultra-social world (even when we know and science has proven there is a better way to ‘engage’ the person at work – just as this post so clearly and wonderfully presents). I am with Lisa – this one is getting printed and reviewed daily so I can not only commit to them myself, but teach to my future leaders!
Ifeanyi,
Terrific list of timeless leadership qualities, and I’m particularly delighted to see compassion there! Character-based leaders focus on people and principles along with profits…and an abundance of “we-based” compassion helps them do just that. Love your advice to “show kindness, care, fairness, genuineness and gain trust, respect, loyalty and followership.”
Thank you Doyenne Jane for your beautiful and encouraging comment. Am honored and privileged to share my thought and sagacity on this platform. No one can achieve success alone. Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon result.
God bless you richly!
Ifeyani, this post will be one that I print and refer to over and over. There is so much wisdom in this. Focus, Passion, Vision, Communication – I can’t wait to share this with my audience. Thank you for taking the time to write a lived and learned message to leaders.
Thank you Virtuous woman for your words are life. And thank you for printing and sharing this with your audience. I look forward to learning and working with you soon.
More grace to you woman of God.
Ifeanyi,
Great post. I agree with all the elements that you have listed and then expanded on. I always put honesty, integrity and compassion at the top of my list but different qualities are required for each situation.
Thanks,
Lee
Thank you Sir Lee, for making out time from your busy schedule to comment on this post. Am honored and inspired for the love you all have shown me.
Shine on!
Ifeanyi,
Your post title, *Timeless Contents…, describes with great strength the reason leadership is so important. The human need to connect for results is timeless. Leadership is influence through connection. It is the pulse that never goes away. It is the artful balance of all the contents you mentioned. In my opinion, this is why leadership is not a position held by one person. It is shared through connection.
Great post as it pings with clear resolve what we all need and what most everyone can do — if they remember to share it.
Best wishes,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™
Everyday presents new leadership opportunities and challenges. I believe that if one can creatively know how and when to use the contents of this toolkit, the person will be on top of the world.
Coach Kate, am grateful that you carved time out of your busy schedule to read and comment on this post,
Remain a blessed blessing.
To be a great leader you must shift from “I” to “We” mentality – 100% GREAT thought Ifeanyi.
Then come … honesty and the rest.
Honesty is connected with trust. And to get trust you have to trust in yourself first then (only then) might be others will trust you! Ifeanyi please visit my blog post about “trust in leadership” (http://leadershipbyvirtue.blogspot.com/2014/02/leadership-and-trust.html) for the “trust” topic.
Cheers
Jaro.
Thank you honorable Jaro Berce. You are a great soul and am happy to crosspath with you. Am going to visit your blog and read more. Together, we prosper!