Genesis chapter 1
Today we are walking in: Recapturing The Spirit Of Leadership
Today we look to the word-LEADER- H5057 nagiyd-- leader, ruler, captain, prince; excellent thing, (chief) governor, leader, noble, prince, (chief) ruler.
The Torah Testifies.............................
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The prophets proclaim...............
Isaiah 55:4 - Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader H5057 and commander to the people.
The writings bear witness.............
2Chronicles 32:21 - And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders H5057 and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword
CHAPTER NINE
Recapturing the Spirit of Leadership
The key to the spirit of leadership is attitude rather than aptitude.
A few years ago, my wife and I went to Egypt and had a tour of the pyramids. We saw the tombs of the Pharaohs, as well as a chariot and a gold bracelet owned by one of the Egyptian rulers. The artifacts were in glass cases. In one case, there were some seeds of corn, wheat, and maize. The notation said something like, “These seeds were found in the Egyptian desert, not far from the Nile, where it is so hot that anything that is underground can be petrified and preserved for thousands of years. These seeds are 6,000 years old.”
The sign also said that some of the ancient seeds had been germinated. The Egyptian government had taken seeds that were 6,000 years old and planted them, and the seeds actually grew! When they crossbred the ancient seeds with modern seed, they found they got a better crop.
These seeds were underground for 6,000 years, but they never lost their innate potential. They were destined to become what they had been created to be: fully grown
plants that could nourish people. No matter how long you have been “petrified” by your emotions, the circumstances of life, or others’ opinions, your innate potential is still within you. The Authorized Dealer connects you with the Creator so that you can fulfill your destiny and do the work you were born to do. Paul wrote to the first-century church at Philippi, “We are Yah’s workmanship, created in Hamachiach Yahusha to do good works, which Yah prepared in advance for us to do.”
THE GOAL OF THE CREATOR IS TO RESTORE THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP BACK TO THE MIND OF MAN.
The goal of the Creator is to restore the spirit of leadership back to the mind of man. To accomplish this, Yah sent us his Word. Yah’s words are designed to transfer truth and ideas that will renew our thought lives and thus transform the spirit of our minds, our attitudes.
THE POWER OF MENTAL CONDITIONING
Our mental conditioning determines our success or failure. You have to train to become what you want to be. The reason soldiers are sent to boot camp is to get them to stop thinking like civilians and start thinking like professional military minds. In boot camp, they are isolated from their families and friends and the rest of society so that they can focus on their new mind-set.
Similarly, when you want to change your mental attitude about leadership, you have to train yourself. You will find that the power of mental conditioning will sustain you and give you the internal fortitude to overcome incredible odds. Our beliefs are housed in our hearts, but they manifest themselves as we experience various circumstances. The level of your mental conditioning dictates your response to life, to issues, to circumstances, to creation, to your world. This is why one of the most powerful things you possess on earth is your mental attitude. As you take in the thoughts of the Creator through prayer and reading the Bible, the Spirit “downloads” these truths to your heart so that your mind is trained to rely on his thoughts and not your former distorted ideas about life.
THE SPIRIT “DOWNLOADS” THE CREATOR’S THOUGHTS TO YOUR HEART.
Yahusha said that the Spirit would teach us the truth and explain the things that he has said. He will be our teacher. In order to have the right mental attitude, you have to have the right teacher, and your teacher, according to the Creator, is his Spirit who dwells in you, who takes up residence in you for that very purpose. Leadership demands mental reconditioning.
THE MARRIAGE OF ABILITY AND ATTITUDE
When you practice renewing your mind, you begin to recapture the spirit of leadership. In this way, there is a marriage between who you inherently are as a leader and the way you are meant to think as a leader. When the attitude of leadership is married to the ability of leadership, then you are a true leader.
INTEGRATING LEADERSHIP MENTALITY AND THE LEADERSHIP MANDATE
The Creator has given us a mandate to lead and have dominion over an area of life. However, we have to integrate this responsibility with the necessary mentality. We can never fully carry out the mandate of leadership if we don’t have the mentality of leadership.
INTEGRATING ATTITUDE, ATTRIBUTES, APTITUDE, AND ALTITUDE
Leaders think in a certain way. Therefore, they manifest certain attributes and they work hard to attain a certain aptitude (they continually desire to learn more about themselves, life, and Yah), and this causes them to think at a higher level, or altitude. The more truth about yourself that you receive into your heart, the higher your thinking will be. You will have an increasingly clear vision for your life. All these areas need to be integrated for effective leadership.
THE KEY TO THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP: ATTITUDE
Again, the key to the spirit of leadership is attitude rather than aptitude. In other words, it’s not ability—it’s mentality. What you think is even more important than what you do. The chapters that follow explore essential attitudes that must be cultivated for you to experience and achieve your fullest leadership potential.
A leader has to have an integration of attitudes. You can’t have vision without courage, you can’t have courage without compassion, and you can’t have compassion without strategy if you want to be an effective leader.
Attitude is a learned behavior, created by our beliefs, which are produced by our thoughts. We change our attitudes by changing our beliefs, by changing our thoughts about everything in life—including ourselves. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”34 The first-century writer John said, “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
ATTITUDES CAN BE CHANGED
We can change our attitudes. In fact, we are responsible for doing so. We cannot continue to function in a manner that we do not truly believe about ourselves. The day that we take responsibility for our attitudes is the day that we truly grow up.
Attitude determines everything. It is not enough to know the principles, precepts, and skills of leadership. We must acquire the spirit of leadership by discovering and applying the attitudes of true leaders. Training in leadership really means training in attitude because attitude has to do with how we respond to life. We must think, talk, walk, dress, act, respond, decide, plan, work, relate, and live like leaders.
I have had to learn the attitudes of leadership. I was born in a very poor neighborhood in the Bahamas, in a wooden house on four stones. I had ten brothers and sisters, and I slept on the wooden floor of our two-bedroom house. I grew up in a neighborhood where there was poverty, and questionable characters were always present, exerting a negative influence.
Then I went through a transformation. I desired to know the truth about my life and about life in general. I questioned my disposition and challenged the status quo during my teenage years. The answers began to appear when I was given a Bible by my parents at age thirteen. I discovered in the pages of this series the amazing truth that I was created in the image of the Creator and that his intent was for me to know him and his will for my existence.
WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CHANGING OUR ATTITUDES.
This discovery changed everything for me forever. When I began to read the Bible, I received new thoughts about myself and my world. The source of our thoughts is so important because our thoughts are the key to our quality of life. When I read the Bible, it contradicted what I was taught and what I saw with my eyes. I began to believe what it said rather than what I heard from outside sources, and that is how I developed a leadership mentality.
Whatever your own circumstances, you, also, can experience the transformation of your outlook as you discover the attitudes that will enable you to be the leader that you were born to be.
CULTIVATING THE LEADERSHIP SPIRIT
In my experience, leadership is 20 percent talent, skill, and technical knowledge and 80 percent attitude. Most of the great leaders throughout history possessed a unique selfperception that set their characters apart from the average person. A careful study of these leadership giants will reveal that they weren’t born with this attitude, but it was ignited in them and then cultivated by a life-changing encounter with the Creator.
To cultivate means to grow, progress, and cause the orderly development of something. This process demands that the right components, resources, and environment be incorporated into the soil of the system. Cultivating the spirit of leadership is a choice, and only you can make it.
The most outstanding leaders we can study are biblical characters, such as Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Daniel, Esther, Deborah, Jeremiah, Mary, Peter, Paul, and John. In every one of the above cases, you will see that they experienced personal encounters with the Creator of mankind and, in these encounters, were challenged to believe things about themselves that they found difficult or almost impossible.
The Creator challenged their views, images, and conceptions of themselves and made demands on their potential that they did not believe they possessed. Moses, a fugitive, was challenged to become a “union leader,” a “freedom fighter,” and a national political leader destined to build a nation that would change the world. Moses’s fear of others, poor sense of self-worth, and low estimation of his own abilities were challenged by the Creator, and he was commanded to go and deliver the charge of “let my people go” to the most powerful government of his day. His self-concept, self-awareness, and estimation of his ability changed almost overnight, and the spirit of leadership was ignited within him. His attitude was changed forever.
Joshua, Moses’s assistant, was challenged to take leadership responsibility for millions of desert people and to settle them in the land of promise, establishing social, cultural, and economic institutions for the new nation. His timidity was challenged by the Creator, and he was commanded to “be strong and courageous.” His self-concept changed in that encounter. This new perception of himself produced the spirit of leadership in him and an attitude that distinguished him from other people.
The same scenario of transformation played out in the lives of Gideon, David, Esther, and all the others. Their personal encounters with their Yah challenged their selfimages, self-concepts, self-esteem, self-worth, and sense of potential. It also gave each a sense of purpose for their lives and changed their attitudes forever. The spirit of leadership was ignited in each, and their lives impacted their generations and continue to inspire the world today.
CULTIVATING THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP IS A CHOICE.
What is crucial in all these cases is the fact that all of them had images of themselves that were not correct and were produced by their cultures, past experiences, or the opinions of others. This is the reason the hidden leader within all of us remains buried and suffocates in the grave of our mediocre cultures. To be free from this condition, we must determine to cultivate the spirit of leadership and rise above the limitations of our past experiences, other people’s opinions of us, and the stifling context of our so-called social norms.
As I noted earlier, to begin this process, we must ask ourselves some very important questions, such as “What image do I have of myself?” or “How do I see myself?” and “What do I imagine that I am capable of?” Self-image sets the boundaries of both individual and national accomplishment.
It defines what you can and cannot be or do. Expand the selfimage, and you expand the scope of possibilities. As in the above examples, most of our self-images are the products of our primary role models, our historical context, our formal and informal educational training, and our social environments and powers of influence.
It is important to understand that the world usually forms its opinions of you primarily from the opinions you have of yourself. Others often see you in precisely the way you see yourself. You will generally act in a way that is consistent with your self-image. Self-esteem is the emotional component of your self-concept and represents the real core of your human personality. This is true of individuals and nations alike. It deals with the question, “How do you feel about yourself?” How much you like yourself is totally dependent on who you think you are. How you define yourself is the single most important statement you can make about yourself, and it is the heart of attitude. The spirit of leadership will emerge from your self-definition.
YOU ACT IN A WAY THAT IS CONSISTENT WITH YOUR SELF-IMAGE.
Low self-esteem is a result of an inferiority or superiority complex. Again, the way you relate to others is directly connected to how you feel about yourself. This is why Yahusha’s response to the question, “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law [of Yah]?” was, in effect, “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.” The value that you perceive others to have and the way you treat them is directly determined by how you see and value yourself. You can never truly value others above your own value.
All behavior is shaped and controlled by who and what you think you are. Everything in life is indeed attitudinal. Your self-image determines the level of your self-esteem and self-worth. Your self-esteem determines how you live your life. In the final analysis, your ability to lead depends on the attitude produced by your self-image, sense of selfworth, and self-esteem.
MARKS OF THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP
Just like the many examples of effective leaders discussed earlier, when you rediscover the truth about yourself, then you, too, will ignite the process of developing the marks of a true spirit of leadership:
• the spirit of a strong self-image—a true sense of one’s Source
• the spirit of a healthy self-concept—a perception of one’s true nature
• the spirit of self-confidence—a belief in one’s inherent ability
• the spirit of self-significance—a sense of valuable contribution to the world
• the spirit of passion—a deep conviction and determination of heart
• the spirit of excellence—a striving to always improve oneself and one’s work
• the spirit of compassion—a sensitivity to the value of others
• the spirit of creativity—a belief in the untested and untried
• the spirit of self-empowerment—a desire to see others succeed
• the spirit of self-improvement—a personal commitment to grow
• the spirit of self-discipline—a commitment to a self-imposed standard
• the spirit of humility—a consciousness of self and one’s strengths and weaknesses
• the spirit of unlimited ability—a belief in one’s potential as raw material
• the spirit of possibilities—a commitment to unlimited thinking
• the spirit of self-acceptance—an embracing of one’s total humanity, including one’s strengths, weaknesses, personality, physical appearance, defects, and gifts
In the following pages, I want to address the heart of this series, and that is the qualities and characteristics of the spirit of leadership—the unique attitudes that all true leaders possess, and the fact that you can cultivate and develop them. These attitudes are necessary if you are to experience the manifestation of your leadership capacity. They can be learned, developed, cultivated, and refined through practice and responsibility. When they come together in your life, then you will fulfill the definition of a leader: You will have the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by a passion, generated by a vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose. To paraphrase Paul Meier,
Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thought produced by your self-image, self-worth, and self-esteem, and habit can be acquired and changed by the reconditioning of the mind.
PRINCIPLES
1. No matter how long you have been “petrified” by your emotions, the circumstances of life, or others’ opinions, your innate leadership potential is still within you.
2. Yah’s words are designed to transfer truth and ideas that will renew our thought lives and thus transform the spirit of our minds, our attitudes.
3. Our mental conditioning determines our success or failure.
4. When the attitude of leadership is married to the ability of leadership, then you are a true leader.
5. Leaders manifest certain attributes, and they work hard to attain a certain aptitude (they continually desire to learn more about themselves, life, and Yah), and this causes them to think at a higher level, or altitude.
6. The day that we take responsibility for our attitudes is the day that we truly grow up.
7. We must acquire the spirit of leadership by discovering and applying the attitudes of true leaders. We must think, talk, walk, dress, act, respond, decide, plan, work, relate, and live like leaders.
8. Leadership is 20 percent talent, skill, and technical knowledge and 80 percent attitude.
9. Cultivating the spirit of leadership is a choice, and only you can make it.
10. How you define yourself is the single most important statement you can make about yourself, and it is the heart of attitude. The spirit of leadership will emerge from your self-definition.
11. All the leadership attitudes can be learned, developed, cultivated, and refined through practice and responsibility.
12. When the leadership attitudes come together in your life, then you will fulfill the definition of a leader: You will have the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by a passion, generated by a vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose.
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