The Leadership Post

Song Mood - Steven Curtis Chapman - All Things New

A soft, high pitched giggle...bouncing off my eardrums and out into the wind, floating away and away.

A pair of slow blinking eyes, begging for my attention, pointing at my own two eyes, aching for some sort of response...well, anything but that of me turning away...embarrassed by her act of initiative.

A whiff of sweet perfume...fleeting, like the woman it wears that walks behind my back and into the night.

I can't tell you what kind of rush it gives to my heart...to be able to comprehend such emotions.

These feelings of passion, love, romance, whatever synergies that come into my system that cause me to soar on a track very high, with depths even lower.

It's a chase. And well, that's leadership.

1. Leadership is influence, said John Maxwell. You need people who are willing to follow you, who agree with you, who understand where you're coming from. Most likely, they're gonna be your friends.

If you're just about friendships and fulfilling their needs, you're not a leader. You're a politician.

A leader is somebody who is not only about making friends and fulfilling needs- he's about getting them to follow some calling, some idea, some THING - and making them do whatever it takes to achieve a goal. And if possible, he's able to help a LOT more other people in the process.

2. The journey is better than the inn. (Cervantes)

When pursuing somebody, you want to find every advantage possible to winning that person. You might talk to friends, you might search their Xangas, you might walk in on a class that they're taking. When you're immersing yourself with all the experiences that people have, or rather, when you are learning from what you're doing, you give yourself the opportunity to learn at a higher level, and therefore teach at a higher level. Where you're at isn't so important, especially when we're not going to be on Earth forever. What your tracks look like, what kind of legacy you're going to build---that's important.

3. Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming (John Wooden)

4. Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

Character. Integrity. Honesty. More than anything, it is staying true to who you are, pushing back when you are pushed, and refusing to accept contortions and bastardizations of what you know is right.

I realize that there's one other thing necessary with leadership, and that's the courage and determination to follow through with whatever you start.

Any leader can have an opinion, and so can any idiot. But when you fear making a stupid mistake with what you say, and you hold back who you are, then you've become frozen. It's as if your essence is being withheld.

I would be one to think that if God were finite in His power, we may have to be intensely controlled with our actions. But I believe that if God is powerful enough to give salvation to His elect, who are full of mistakes and all sorts of sin, then we must also trust in following His will if that is what we are called to follow through in action.

So those are a few of my remarks...any thoughts?