Leadership

Today I am going to start a multi part series on leadership. It is something that has been on my mind and heart for sometime, and I think that now is an ample opportunity for me to dive into it. I am a proponent that effective leadership is the only way to properly run any society, company, family, church, etc. Without leadership there can be no success, there can be no vision, there can be no future, for many there can be no tomorrow. Throughout this series I am going to highlight many people from all walks of life. As you will probably notice, most of the people will be important historical figures (i.e. generals and military personnel, politicians, and other respectable leaders of our time and times past). Leadership to me is not cut and dry, it comes in packages large and small. Being an effective leader does not mean you have to run a fortune five hundred company, or command hundreds of troops into battle. Effective leadership can mean teaching someone how to read or giving someone direction when they are lost. As John Quincy Adams once said: If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” Leaders are around making impacts everyday. If you’re a leader it doesn’t mean that you have to write best selling novels or sell out huge venues, inspiring millions of people. At the same time just because one is doing those things that alone does not make them a leader.
Leaders are the catalyst to this society at all levels. Leaders are the ones that lay the groundwork that set the stage, that show those who are doing the work how to do the work. It is often said that sales is the means that drives a successful business, but effective leadership is the means that drives sales. The job in which I just came from is a case in point example of the direction this society seems to be heading. The company has very low employee retention rates, and is constantly having to spend money and resources training in new people after 10-12 months when others just didn’t cut it. They continue to fire those who are doing the work, but very rarely look to those who are leading. Not everyone is going to fit a script for specific positions. Part of leadership is working with what you have and creating opportunity off of the strengths that someone might have. While one person may be great at sales, the other may be great at marketing, while the other may be great at public relations/policy. That sounds to me like you have a fairly dynamite sales team. However because they are not all capable of doing the one thing the company may not want, they are of no apparent help to the company. There is a definite opportunity for this institution in society, yet because they are fogged by a cloud of ineffective leadership they are continually missing it, not because they can’t see it, but because they don’t want any part of it.
I am not going to post on this everyday, as this is an ongoing product within my head, but I am going to try and post once or twice a week for the next few weeks on leadership. I am going to have a theme each time I post, a theme in which I think is vital for leaders in the future. Now with all this said, I am not an expert on leadership or anything of that realm. I am drawing off scholarly sources, and others who are. Much of this is also simply my opinion and my observations of what I see as a major obstacle in our society. All I hope to do is to one day create a discourse on the matter, because hopefully some headway can be made.