THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP

Genesis chapter 1




Today we are walking in: 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




THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP




Trapped within every follower is a hidden leader. The most important quality of true leadership is the spirit of leadership. All humans possess the leadership spirit, but only those who capture the spirit of leadership ever become truly effective leaders.




For the past thirty years, I have had the privilege of speaking to hundreds of millions of people through my various media programs and hundreds of thousands personally in my seminars, conferences, and training institutes in over seventy nations. My focus has been assisting others in discovering their sense of purpose, maximizing their untapped potential, and discovering their leadership ability. I have received thousands of testimonies of how the leadership materials, workshops, and seminars have helped many to find their visions, renew their focus, and produce a better life. I am humbled and honored by the privilege of helping others achieve their personal and corporate goals.




A MISSING INGREDIENT




However, there was one challenge that I had for many of these years: I tried to understand why, no matter how many principles, precepts, and programs people were taught on the subject of leadership, there always seemed to be a missing ingredient that was a barrier preventing many of them from breaking through to the leadership capacity that I knew existed within them.




I had read hundreds of books, articles, journals, and research papers on the subject of leadership; I had attended countless seminars, conferences, and summits dealing with leadership development, yet I was never able to identify, define, or fully understand the mystery key that separated and distinguished the leader from the follower. It was not until a few years ago, during one of my leadership sessions with a group of professionals, business owners, and religious, governmental, and corporate leaders I began to gain insight into this mystery of leadership. I took this insight back to my home in, where I was able to study my staff and members of our organization to try to clarify specific principles that make a leader different from followers. This series is a result of this study and the subsequent application of these principles in the lives of many of my students and clients.




AN INTERNALIZED DISCOVERY OF SELF




Simply put, I discovered that the thinking of a leader is what separates him or her from the followers. I found that true leaders are distinguished by a unique mental attitude that emanates from an internalized discovery of self, which creates a strong, positive, and confident self-concept and self-worth. I call this unique mental attitude the spirit of leadership. It’s an attitude that affects the entire life of the leader and controls his or her response to life, danger, crises, disappointments, failures, challenges, and stress. This attitude gives the leader a sense of confidence, faith, and belief in possibilities. It inspires others to have hope in the face of great odds and causes the leader to cultivate a spirit of purpose, daring, passion, and conviction.




This spirit of leadership is birthed in the womb of a personal revelation within the leader and manifests itself in specific and characteristic qualities. In this book, we will look at how a person can experience his or her personal revelation of leadership, and we will identify the special qualities of this spirit.




Together, we will discover that leadership is not the result of study or ordination, position or power. Man (humanity) is essentially a spirit being, and the nature of a person’s spirit dictates the nature that he or she manifests. Until a person’s spirit is changed, the person is unchanged. Leadership, therefore, begins in the spirit of a person. When the spirit of leadership comes alive, it produces an attitude that separates the leader from the follower.




It is important to understand that leadership is not an exclusive club for the elite few who were “born with it.” Every human has the instinct and capacity for leadership, but most do not have the courage or will to cultivate it. The spirit called “man” was created to lead, but man lost the spirit of leadership. All humans posses the potential to lead, but most have lost the passion of leadership. The goal of this series is to help you to rediscover and recover that leadership spirit.




There are many who confuse the position of leadership with the disposition of true leadership. No matter what position one may be given, status in an organization does not automatically create leadership. Genuine leadership is one’s internal disposition, which relates to a sense of purpose, self-worth, and self-concept.




Others have confused leadership with the ability to control others through manipulating their emotions and playing on their fears and needs. But true leadership is a product of inspiration, not manipulation.




Then there are those who believe that the title makes the leader. However, we have all seen many people who have been placed in prominent positions with impressive titles yet have failed miserably because they haven’t understood that real leadership is manifested in performance and results and not just in labels.




True leadership goes far beyond the mechanics of most of the approaches that pervade our leadership programs today. It has more to do with discovering a sense of meaning and significance in life. This distinction separates the leadership quality of passion from the hunger or lust for power. True leaders do not seek power but are driven by a passion to achieve a noble cause.




I am convinced that you were created to be a leading success. Every human being was created to lead in an area of gifting. You were never created to be oppressed, subjugated, subordinated, or depressed. The Creator designed each human being to fulfill a specific purpose and assignment in life. Your assignment determines your area of leadership. Deep inside each of us is a spirit with a big dream struggling to free itself from the limitations of our past experiences, present circumstances, and self-imposed doubts.




We are all victims of unfulfilled passions. I believe that man’s greatest ignorance is of himself. What you believe about yourself creates your world. No human can live beyond the limits of his or her beliefs. In essence, you are what you believe: Your beliefs are a product of your thoughts, your thoughts create your beliefs, your beliefs create your convictions, your convictions create your attitude, your attitude controls your perception, and your perception dictates your behavior. The result is that your life is what you think it should be. When you think according to the spirit of leadership, you begin the process of becoming a leader. This is the heart of true leadership: your attitude, your mind-set, your “spirit of the mind.”




Some of the unique attitudes or qualities of leaders include passion, initiative, teamwork, innovation, persis- tence, discipline, focus, time management, confidence, positive disposition, patience, peace, and compassion. We will explore many of these leadership attitudes so that you can discover how to cultivate them in your life.




This series is dedicated to helping you recapture the essence of your true leadership potential and the accompa- nying mental attitude that will manifest the true spirit of leadership.




Introduction




Leadership is a trusted privilege given by followers.




There is nothing as elusive as leadership. All the money in the world can make you rich, and all the power in the world can make you strong, but these things can never make you a leader. You can inherit a fortune but never leadership. Yet there is no greater need in our twenty-first century world than effective, competent leadership. Our greatest challenge is that of a leadership vacuum. The number one need all over the globe today is not money, social programs, or even new governments. It is quality, moral, disciplined, principle-centered leadership.




We need true leadership in our governments, busi- nesses, schools, civic institutions, youth communities, religious organizations, homes, and in every arena of life— including the disciplines of law, medicine, science, sports, and the media. Yet the search for genuine leadership is becoming more difficult.




WHERE ARE THE TRUE LEADERS?




The complex, uncertain, uncharted waters of the twenty-first century have plunged us in to a world of globalization, terrorism, economic uncertainty, famines, health epidemics, social transformation, corporate compromises, moral and ethical experimentation, religious conflicts, and cultural clashes. These conditions demand the highest quality of leadership that our generation can produce. Yet I have sat in the halls of governments and observed the struggles of today’s leaders. I have sat around the table chatting with presidents of countries, and I have heard them express their lack of ability to deal with their nations’ challenges. I have talked with cabinet ministers of governments around the world, and they openly ask for help, assistance, and advice. Many leaders just don’t know how to lead any longer.




This crisis in leadership is on many people’s minds today. Questions of moral integrity, honor, values, role models, and respectable standards are topics of discussion on many news programs, and they are also in the thoughts of the man on the street. We hear of leaders having sexual escapades. We hear of business magnates falling by the dozens to corruption. We see national leaders and their cabinet members being tried by their own governments for stealing and other financial misconduct. We learn of priests abusing and misusing their authority and positions in order to take advan- tage of those whom they were entrusted to care for. Where are the true leaders today?




I believe the problem is that leadership has become a role one plays rather than a life one leads. Contemporary leaders are attempting to divorce their personal lives from their public responsibilities and their personal standards from their public lives. To many, leadership is an act, not a calling. Therefore, when they are in their offices, they act a certain way, but when they leave, they lead double lives. This is a contradiction of true leadership. Leadership is not a technique, a style, or the acquisition of skills, but a manifestation of a spirit.




Many institutions, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, civic organizations, and nonprofit entities spend billions of dollars every year training thousands of would-be leaders in management techniques, human manipulation skills, organizational systems, methods of control and per- suasion, and much more, in the hopes of producing potential or better leaders. Yet such seminars cannot produce true leaders. Furthermore, the quality and standards of leaders are not increasing, but decreasing.




The shelves of every bookstore are stacked with books on the subject of leadership. Some promise instant transformation from follower to leader, while others sell cheap ideas that purport to create leaders by the application of shallow psychology and worn-out principles that frustrate those who invest in them. Research on how to be a leader continues by the leadership gurus, as colleges and universities add special courses designed to produce or improve the cadre of leaders. Yet I believe that all the college courses in leadership can never make a leader.




Many of those whom we idolized as leaders in our modern societies have disappointed us as their fragile, formerly hidden inconsistencies have been exposed. Just the mention of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Martha Stewart, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Catholic priests tells the story of our culture of defective leadership. Moral defects; abuses of power, privilege, and trust; misuses of resources; corruption; and hypocrisy have become associated with leadership today perhaps more than at any other time in history

.Morality, ethics, principles, convictions, standards, faithfulness, transparency, trustworthiness, and honesty are rare commodities in the field of contemporary leadership. Why is true leadership so difficult to find?




OUR CHEATING CULTURE OF LEADERSHIP




One day, as I settled in to my seat on a plane trip to address a group of leaders on ethics and morality in leadership, I was shocked to discover, in the copy of the American Way magazine in my seat pocket, an article by Joseph Guinto with this title: “Lie, Cheat, and Steal Your Way to the Top.” The subtitle read, “Everyone’s doing it, right? But what’s our cheating culture really costing us, and where and when does it end?” Obviously, this subject caught my eye, and I plunged into reading the content.




The article exposed and detailed the corrupting web of cheating as a culture at all levels of Western society, including the highest offices of leadership, and it talked about the “trickle-down corruption effect” taking place. Here are some facts contained in the article that I think are noteworthy: “Employee theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the U.S.A....the total cost of occupational fraud—mainly accounting schemes—was $600 billion in 2002...twice what it was in 1997.” The article said that one of the results of this widespread corruption is its effect on the mind-set of future business leaders. An ethics professor at a top business school said, “[My] students defend their view that some cheating is okay by saying, ‘Everybody does it.’”1




This is the culture and environment of leadership that pervades our world today, whether it is in politics, religion, business, education, or sports. We are in desperate need of true, competent, principled, sensitive, compassionate, and spiritually conscious leaders.




WHAT MAKES A TRUE LEADER?




What makes a leader? How are genuine leaders produced? When does one truly become a leader? Is there a predictor of leadership? What are the qualities that distinguish leaders from followers? This series is about the missing ingredient in leadership development. It’s about the elusive link between talent, titles, and leadership. Genuine leadership is not a result of memorizing formulas, learning skills, imitating methods, or training in techniques. It is an attitude of the heart.