INFLUENTIAL LEADER
By Dr. Leonardo Delizo, PhD., MSBA, SLH – JHS
CEO & President
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Self-control doesn't vanish overnight. It slips away little by little, under the constant pressure of an unguarded lifestyle. Paradoxically, this erosion of self-control is most likely to happen in those areas where you think you are strongest and feel most confident and secure.
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Don't confuse leadership with management. Though a manager can keep an operation running, only an influential leader can motivate people to accomplish those changes that meet their real needs. I'm not putting managers down; the world needs good managers. Management, though, is not leadership.
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Without wholehearted and realistic commitment to a vision, you will never see it through, and you will never practice real leadership.. You may occupy a leadership position. But you will not be an influential leader.
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Visions don't require experience. They don't require academic degrees. The key word is potential. Your vision may take you into an area you have never been in before. You will need to learn new skills. What matters, then, is not what you know already, but how much confidence and self-belief you have based on your faith in GOD.
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But GOD will work through you, in spite all of your inadequacies, if you only have faith in HIS power. GOD never assigns a task and then deprives HIS agent of the tools required to complete it.
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Leader and vision are inextricably linked. They cannot be separated. Part of realizing a vision is realizing your own potential to pursue that vision and see it bear fruit. If a leader has a vision, but does not take his own potential seriously, that vision will soon die. It will remain a dream.
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Leadership is something you do. The success or failure of your career, in business or the pastorate, will one day be judged by the quality of the decisions you made. They may be mundane and pragmatic decisions. Or they may be visionary decisions. It is up to you to decide.
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We are seeing a global crisis of leadership, a crisis brought about by a rapid expansion of world population and the fact that too many in leadership positions treat leadership as a technical skill, not as a discipline deeply rooted in faith and character.
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If you are a Christian believer in an unbelieving society, you are a leader. Let me say that again: to be a Christian in secular society is to be a leader, full stop. You may or may not occupy a leadership position in a Christian organization or the business world. But even if you feel no special calling and hold no position of responsibility, the burden of leading others to salvation falls directly on your shoulders.
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Love is not a sentimental emotion but an act of the will in which a leader works toward the highest good of others.
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Decision making sits at the heart of leadership. In fact, leadership really boils down to a constant execution of decisions, big and small, day in, day out. And the trail of decisions a leader leaves behind him charts the trajectory of his influence.
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Leadership transcends all forms of organization. People talk about "business leadership" and "political leadership" and "military leadership." Yet the fundamentals underlying good leadership have nothing to do with the specifics of business or politics or warfare. Leadership is a discipline in itself and can be applied with equal effectiveness to any organization and any purpose.
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Influential leadership, by which I mean broadly leadership that changes the world for good, consists of decisions, big and small, that all derive their inspiration and direction from a single life aim.
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Love involves the totality of one's being. It involves unconquerable consideration, charitableness, and benevolence. It means that, no matter what anyone does to you in the way of humiliation, abuse, or injury, you work toward that person's highest good. That amounts to a tough requirement--and one that few leaders can claim to fulfill.
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If you don't have the luxury of vacations where you can get away from others, find ways of creating your own solitude. Find time at the beginning of the day to do your undisturbed thinking. Or cultivate your own inner solitude even in the midst of a noisy crowd.
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Leaders without vision are like guides without a map. Though they may come across as strong, confident, and independent, in reality they are not influencers but "influencees."
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GOD simplifies the decision-making process. Goals tone up mental and physical health. Goals generate respect. Goals provide a system of measure so you may enjoy the feeling of accomplishment. Goals produce persistence. And goals, under GOD, deliver the leader from bondage to the plaudits of people.
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A GOD-given vision is an awesome responsibility. Fulfillment can lead you to the heights of tremendous service to GOD and your fellow man. Failure to follow the vision will deprive others of the leadership they need.
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The effective speaker has something worthy to say and says it worthily.
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Leadership is the discipline of deliberately exerting special influence within a group to move it toward goals of beneficial permanence that fulfill the group's real needs.
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A goal program is a not a wish list; it is a program of work. In business, visions should be permanent and goals flexible. Be often it turns out the other way around. The goals become fixed and vision lapses. Businesses cling to old buildings, old markets, old structures--long after these have fallen into terminal decline. The market is constantly changing. If you don't follow the changes by adjusting your goals, then in financial terms you are dead.
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People depend on you. They often lean on you. When things go badly they complain, and when things go well they don't always remember to credit you or say thanks. In short, being an influential leader will be constant drain on your resources. Where will you go to refuel yourself?
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True contentment springs from the ability to put your own concerns second, and to express love for others by giving.
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Self-control comes down to successful leadership of your own character.
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How often we respond unthinkingly to suggestions from outside.
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You are the product of your thoughts. Yet you have the power to determine what you think about. Act on this ability. Deliberately choose the thoughts you have.
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People on the receiving end of "the truth" may have all sorts of reasons for not accepting it. The medical patient may be in denial over an alarming diagnosis. The executive may have locked himself into his own program or plan. The teenager may care more about the opinions of her peers than those of her parents. In each case, careful explanations and faultless logic will fall on deaf ears.
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Listening has become a hugely underrated skill.
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Always distinguish the goal of gaining consent from the goal of beating the opposition.
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Force and one-upmanship don't achieve persuasion. You are aiming to have others say "Yes, that's the right way to go," not "Yes, he was right."
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Source:
365 Things Every Successful Leader Should Know.
