Tag Archives: essence of leadership

Leadership

Leadership in Two Words: Discovery and Service

Leadership suffers inadequacy of reliable theories. The existing leadership theories, as many may argue, do not lead to an accurate leadership practice. Normally, a theory should serve as a roadmap to guide our actions and adapt new challenges. Theory is a paper work, while practice is a practical walk. In leadership there is a famous saying, “think the talk, talk the talk and walk the talk.” Metaphorically, this saying may help us how to materialize a thought into a practice.

Certainly, a reliable theory can pass a test of time and uncertainties. However, if we look back in history, we may learn that leadership theories are impractical. There might be a number of reasons for that, but one reason could be lack of a definite understanding about the essence of leadership. I once asked a government official, “What is the essence of leadership?” “Leadership is nothing, but a means to fulfill a national interest,” he replied. If all political leaders are like him, then there will be no hope for humanity to flourish. The essence of leadership has lost somewhere and subjected into petty national interests. Nowadays, nations spend a chunk of time and money to amend historical mistakes than future development. When the past outweighs the future, leadership misses its essential meaning.

Some leadership authors gallop freely and come up with whatever their mind dictates them. Leadership is not a game of mind, or a game that begins with a thought and ends with a word. It is not a belief, either. It is the most practical field and far beyond religious, political or ideological concepts. Unfortunately, our current leadership practices are entangled religiously, politically and ideologically.

Leadership is an action. Most leaders, however, are not writers and researchers. They read and apply whatsoever books are available in the market place. They may learn from consequences as in the case of wars, financial deficit and social chaos, but true leaders learn before running into an action. In fact, as many say, history repeats itself. What has been done a century ago, repeats itself in the modern era. This implies that history has a little lesson to teach us unless we learn how to discover our leadership talent and put it into a service.

Leadership in two words simplifies problems and ambiguities. It is true that leadership has been defined differently by different authors. There are a number of verbs, nouns and adjectives that directly or indirectly explain the essence of leadership. For instance, John Maxwell, the author of many leadership books, highlights a number of leadership qualities. I have read some of his books, but I could not figure out his profound philosophy. In some cases, he addressed leadership as a combination of indefinite personal and interpersonal skills. Nonetheless, personal and interpersonal skills are bizarre with situations. They cannot last long. Leadership skills may differ from time to time, but the core idea, which is the nucleus, cannot be altered under any circumstance.

Leadership is not a word, but a two action words: discovery and service. Discovery and service are action words that a student of leadership should wonder about before jumping to act as a leader. Discovery is the greatest leadership adventure towards the truest and limitless nature of your inherent leader. It is a personal journey within oneself to explore and understand what lies within. It might take a number of years, and thus commitment and unwavering patience and confidence are indispensable, whereas service is byproduct of successful potential discovery. When the leader within you exploded, service comes quite naturally. Service is like a reaped fruit which is available to the world irrespective of race, religion, nationality or ideology.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Berhane_A_Tedla/1257974

 

Leadership

The Ambiguity of Leadership

When I was teaching a philosophy class, I would ask students, “What philosophy is not?” I had been using this question to provoke thoughts, generate new ideas and remove possible ambiguities. Every student would come up with original and sincere answers. I also used to apply the same technique in other fields, such as education and leadership courses. For instance, in a leadership class, I used to ask three subjective questions: “Who was the most misunderstood man ever? Who was the most evil man ever? What is the most ambiguous field ever?”

On the first two questions, students used to supply different answers from time to time, but with the last question almost more half of the students agreed that leadership is the most ambiguous field ever.

Basically, leadership is a social fiber and vital for nations to prosper. It is true that without leadership there would not be any civilization. Its importance has become more apparent in this decade with the escalating of global problems: poverty, social upheavals, political conflicts, natural disaster and nuclear weapons. Its absence is equivalent to lack of normal development in societies. Regardless of its importance, there is little known about it. It is the most misunderstood field ever. Leadership seems to be a very subjective field. People somehow confuse it to a position, power, recognition, fame or big office. By its very nature, it is open for public discussions and interpretations. I must, therefore, admit that leadership is an ambiguous or an elusive field.

On my personal interest and initiative, I have been trying to explore the essence of leadership. I have read a number of books on the field from ancient to contemporary concepts. I have also watched and attended several leadership lecturers, conferences and workshops. Yet, I have not come across precise terms that can satisfy my hunger in understanding the field. Generally, it is defined as a practice to inspire or motivate subordinates for a work to be done. This is the common definition at public knowledge, but it is too general and shallow. The right definition has to be born yet.

Models of leadership change over time. Throughout the centuries, we have seen a number of leadership styles and models, but experiences have shown that not a single leadership style or model has survived to suffice social situations. Leaders, therefore, have learnt to employ a situational leadership style based on situations. For instance, if circumstances are chaotic, and require an immediate order from above, leaders apply an autocratic leadership style to avoid turbulence. On the other hand, if situations are at a normal state, leaders apply a democratic or laissez-faire leadership style.

At times, situational leadership style has no importance, whatsoever. I agree with the practice of situational leadership style, if the ultimate purpose of leadership is to maintain a social order and control people tightly. But I would disagree, if the purpose of leadership is to inspire individuals in order to realize their potentials and live to their maximum capabilities. Time has proved that better change and growth are not byproducts of poor leadership practices, but rather outcomes of talent discovery. For instance, realized individuals, such as Thomas Edison, Einstein, Henry Ford or Steve Job, changed the world enormously. Leadership practices should provide challenging situations where individuals can test their talents to create.

Challenging situations produce scientists, whereas poor leadership practices produce submissive and uncreative individuals. Individuals need challenging environments to discover new things and understand their purposes. However, weak leaders weigh stagnant societies more than individuals’ growth. A society as a center of civilization reduces citizens to a slavery mode of life. In a world where political struggle dominates, the individual has no fundamental rights at all; he always comes at the fringe of a society to serve indefinitely as in the case of Eritrea. In Eritrea, citizens have no political and economic freedoms. When leadership is handled wrongly, it becomes ambiguous. In other words, its definition, meaning and concepts vanish among ideologies, power struggle, interests, wars, corruption and many other petty things.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Berhane_A_Tedla/1257974

 

Leadership

Leadership As a Human Service

What is leadership or who is a leader? The common knowledge about leadership definition is to influence the thoughts and behaviors of other people by motivating and inspiring with the purpose to utilize resources (human & material) so as to build organizations, communities, nations and the globe. The bottom-line is to put people into a service willingly and happily through a leadership talent. Now, it is not difficult to define who is a leader or what is a leader all about. A leader is someone who inspires, motivates and utilizes both human and materials resources wisely or effectively. This very definition carries a wisdom that supersedes the literal definition of leadership. If we think critically and analyze the essence of leadership, it is all about human service-the universal service.

At the surface, the definition of leadership seems a piece of cake to understand and far from complexity. However, it is not easy to serve organization, communities, nations and the world without the wisdom of leadership. The very essence of leadership is service. By service it means that to devote one’s life wholeheartedly to the entire humanity without segregation. Leadership is a choice to serve. It has nothing to do with a position, good office or title. Hence, good leaders deliberately choose to serve, not to be served.

Leadership is wide in scope, complex in nature and abundant in service. It is also a universal truth that humanity needs to survive and flourish. Humanity merely flourishes, if it starts to serve itself; otherwise, without service the devil is too big to overcome. Without visionary leaders, tomorrow is too obscure and more uncertain. Humanity needs not managers or administers, but leaders who can reconnect yesterday to today, and today to tomorrow, for service is not one time event. This is meant to say that genuine leaders have the enormous power to connect cultures and histories to the promising future.

Indeed, life is a service. The foundation or the root of life is service. Jesus Christ, the leader of leaders, served humanity to death. He is still the iconic model of leadership for those who want to serve life entirely. He sweated blood and served humanity to death. He served, but He was not served in return. During His time, on the planet, He taught humanity to love and serve itself. Even in His last time, before He departed, He deeply interceded the disciples to go to the world and serve humanity to death. This is the moral and wisdom of leadership that we learn from Jesus. In accordance with this, we had also a number of leaders who sacrificed their lives for service, such as Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln and mother Teresa. These three people had a lot in common. Three of them consumed their lives in serving humanity. Even Nelson Mandela, the living leader, is also one of the best leaders ever Africa produced. If we look back to their histories, we find freedom, love, liberation, prosperity, truth, but to the extreme their histories carry an absolute service to humanity. Truly, humanity is blessed and flourished to freedom through their leadership services. The service is diverse in kind, but universal toward the path of prosperity. Their echoes and traces are still behind them and helping us to enjoy the beauty of life. Hence, their histories are the assets of leadership and by far the figures or model of service.

If leadership is about service, who wants to serve? Apparently, we all want to be served, and don’t want to serve humanity. We are ego-centric or selfish spirit. Selfish spirit wants this and that, never gratifies. For someone to be a good leader, the self-concept must be overlooked and become the true him in order to be an instrument of service. Service is an innate, but selfishness is an induced spirit from the outside world.

True leaders are original, unshakable, unified, lived spirit and flow like a river to serve and reconstruct the planet, and also understand the very nature of life as a service rendering to the whole humanity irrespective of race, religion, ideology or nationality. Such deeper understanding happens to be because of leadership discovery. Leadership is special, but subtle and complex, because leaders should discover the talents, gifts, abilities and skills within the ‘being’. It is true that for someone who has not discovered the inner treasures, has nothing to offer, but a lot to take from others through selfish spirit. If by chance he or she comes to a position to lead a nation, the whole country’s treasure will be put into his/her personal account. We can take dictators as an example in this situation. Dictators draw the whole countries’ assets into their personal interest and assume little responsibility. Under dictatorship leadership a considerable human resources can easily be exploited, wasted or misused. Dictators are unrealized leaders and threat to human civilization. The failure to discover their inner leadership talents and gifts resulted to a nations’ definite backwardness, diseases, illiteracy, tribal conflict, tyranny, sordid poverty and many other problems that are pertaining to human issues. Such dilemma is more visible in countries under dictatorship leadership, particularly in the developing countries.

Dictators and leaders are diametrically opposite. There is no a commonplace between them. It is like the difference between the sky and earth. When one goes up, the other goes down, or vice versa. Leaders are realized talents, whereas dictators are unrealized talents. Leaders produce whereas dictators waste or abuse. Leaders render service whereas dictators take away. Leaders are visionary whereas dictators are shortsighted mind. Leaders aim high whereas dictators aim personal. Leaders are change agents whereas dictators are deteriorate agents. Leaders build whereas dictators destroy. Leaders die for service, whereas dictators die for the self.

It is the same talent that works in both. The same energy builds or destroys, or the same energy makes a leader or a dictator. It depends on how it is wisely or foolishly used. The same water can cultivate or destroy vegetations at the same time. Hence, the usage matters a lot more. Leaders discover the talents from within and use them wisely for human service and future generation.

Leaders are not made or born from the outside world. Leaders are born from within. Some leadership authors adhere to the idea that leadership is a learned or acquired. However, if we look back to human history, we find a lot of learned leaders who have committed a colossal errors and tortured humanity to death. Education has nothing to do with genuine leaders, though it is important as a stimulus to cause the leader within everyone to be born. Even intelligence is not an indispensable unless it is tuned up by the spirit of leadership. For instance let’s take Adolf Hitler, the butcher of humanity. Hitler’s IQ was around 140, but he ended up against human gene. He had the wrong spirit though he was genius and courageous.

True leaders are holy spirited, visionary, born from within, shone from in-out and dedicated to the purpose of human service. The service is universal for common purpose in reference to human prosperity and rebuilding of the planet. Leaders have an infinite potential to serve, create, change, innovate and develop nations to the heights of civilization.

In the 21st century, we don’t need administrators or managers, but deadly we need leaders. Nations are over administered or managed, but little change, innovation and development. The absence of leadership resulted to nations’ stagnation, tribal conflict, genocide, tyranny and problem of implementations. All the global issues, such as nuclear weapon, economic crisis, epidemic diseases, global warming, ideological conflicts, severe corruption and many others, are also byproduct of poor leadership capacity. The new brand of leadership that points towards service is the solution to all these global issues. The new brand of leadership makes the clear-cut between leadership by consent and force, and calls for the deeper relationship between leaders and followers, employers and employees. This kind of leadership will help the world to enter into new era of potential realization, and the downfall and disappearance of dictators and kings.

Leadership as a service emanates from within, assumes a considerable responsibility, and characterizes by loyalty, trustworthiness, unwavering courage, definiteness of decisions and plans, cooperation, change, innovation, solid personality, sympathy, sense of justice and the like. It dismisses also the threats of human survival, and is more powerful than any form of leadership, for it helps humanity to prosper, cooperate, function, realize and reach the heights of civilizations.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Berhane_A_Tedla/1257974