Leadership Centre

DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP:
The word Leader obviously comes from the word Lead. This means to guide, to show the way, to go ahead of, to walk in front of, to chart a course etc. There are two constants to leadership, a leading unit and a following unit. The two go hand in hand; you cannot have one without the other. John Maxwell said “He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk”.

- The fundamental principle of leadership is the ability of moving people from one location to another with positive results. The following are some of the definitions for leadership in any sphere, politics, military, business, society, sports, family, ministry, church or community.

i. The ability to MOVE people forward toward their Destiny and full Potential.
ii. The endowment to motivate others from a position of inertia into positive productive activity.
iii. An inner victory and determination towards one’s full potential that attracts or motivates others.
iv. Charting a course or vision that ignites/impassions people into action.

Note the example of David in 1 Samuel 17:51-52
i. One man’s actions inspires others to victory
ii. David led men who were older, stronger and more experienced than him into battle against the Philistines.
iii. Age, colour, class or education is not the criteria for leadership in the economy of God’s Kingdom.

THE SECRET OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP
Successful Leaders achieve such by deploying specific principles and not emotions. Two biblical illustrations are thus: 1 Samuel 13:7-14 & 1 Samuel 30:3-8.
· To lead effectively you must follow efficiently.
· Great leaders are God-followers.
· Knowing the voice of God is crucial on the terrain of leadership.
· Private home work = Public rewards
· Private victory = Public validation
· Public Success – Private success = Public Scandal

Excerpts from Bishop's new LEADERSHIP 101 TRAINING MANUAL

The world is filled with followers, supervisors, and managers but very few leaders. You can choose to be different through personal development and ongoing training so as not to be just a statistic among the crowd but unique and exceptional. Becoming a leader is by deliberate effort. That which distinguishes the great from the small is acquisition of and the effective use of knowledge, wisdom, insight, understanding, abilities, right timing and creative leadership skills. Leaders are those who have the answers in a room full of questions. Followers complain whereas leaders solve problems and train others to do likewise. A leader’s favourite statement is ‘If it is going to be, it’s up to me.’

’Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events and great minds discuss ideas.’ In this course, you will discover what leadership is and isn’t, what separates leaders from followers, distinguishes the men from the boys and draw the same conclusion with Oswald J. Saunders, John Maxwell and Dr. Myles Munroe, ‘Leadership is about right influence, backed by purpose and passion, nothing more nothing less.’

Leadership is about empowering men to fulfil their destinies by taking them from:

- A life without purpose to a purpose-driven life

- Being uninformed to being informed

- Being deformed to being transformed

- Insignificance to significance

- Mediocrity to excellence

- Ordinariness to extraordinariness

- Failure to distinction

- Slavery to their promised land

- Aimlessness into fulfilment at all levels and in every sphere of life

- Just being relevant to being positively revolutionary

- Worrying to thinking

- Scratching with turkeys to soaring with eagles

- Just being a thermometer to being a thermostat

- Doing general things to achieving particular things

- Just dreaming to making a difference

- Breaking records to setting records

- Meeting the set standards to setting new standards

- Becoming outstanding to becoming the standard

The purpose for leadership is not the maintenance of followers but the production of more leaders.

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." - Rosalynn Carter, US First Lady (b 1927)

“Small minds discuss people, Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss Ideas.” - Eleanor Roosevelt, US First Lady, 1933-1945

Which mind do you have? Which of these describe your mind? Which one are you? This world is ruled by those who constantly use their minds to generate ideas which through innovation become inventions.

“Leaders have initiative – the capacity to make things happen – they don’t wait for things to happen to them – they make things happen i.e. they take initiatives. They don’t wait for things to happen to them – they happen to things. They challenge the status quo.” - Dr. Michael Hutton-Wood

"As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others." - Bill Gates

“Hidden within every follower is a leader waiting to be discovered. Trapped within every follower is a leader.” - Dr. Myles Munroe

• True leadership brings followers into leadership and makes itself increasingly unnecessary. So, you are a successful leader when your followers can lead others. Success without a successor is failure.
• True leadership provides opportunity for others to find and fulfill their God-given purpose.
• The purpose for leadership is not the maintenance of followers but the production of leaders.
• The greatest display of leadership is service.
• Leadership is born out of character and determination.
• A leader is simply a person who has a sphere of influence.
• Good leadership is born out of, is carried on excellently and is executed from good follower-ship. One is not qualified to give orders until he can receive them.
• Leadership only exercises authority as they operate under equal and higher authority. You cannot exercise authority until you are under authority.
• Leadership is not a right, it’s an art; and being an art, it represents a discipline that only answers to development.
• Every time God desires to do something great, He does not call the masses. No! He calls a leader to step forward and he trains them to function. e.g. Restoration of world - Adam; Noah - new breed of people; New nation - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; Deliverance of Israel from captivity - Moses; Crossing over to promised land – Joshua; Jesus, Paul, Peter, Timothy Titus, etc.
• God never forces His leadership on anyone.
• If you want to learn on leadership go to the best book on leadership ever written - the Bible - it has the potential to change your life and the course of your development as a spiritual leader or any leader in the secular world. Like the title of John Maxwell‘s book - ‘there is no such thing as business ethics, ethics are ethics.’ It all came from this book.
• Who could possibly teach us more about leadership than God Himself.
• Churches and nations can die due to a lack of strong leadership.
• The leadership of any group or organization will determine its success or failure in other words - its future.
• The crying need of the world and of the church today is developed, exemplary, sound and moral generational leadership.
  
  For further insight, order your copy of Dr. Michael Hutton-Wood's new book: LEADERSHIP SECRETS.