There are so many definitions of who and what a leader is. Each has its pros and cons.
“The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.” Peter Drucker
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Warren Dennis
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” Bill Gates
However the most accurate definition of leadership is simply that leadership is influence.
“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal” Kevin Kruse
A leader is an influential person. He wields tremendous influence over the people he leads. Divorce influence from leadership and all that will be left is an empty shell. Position, status and power do not always translate to leadership influence. A leader without influence is a figure head and not worth the title, status or position he holds.
A leader influences the people under him or his followers or team to achieve set goals, aims or objectives. No influence equals to no leadership. Low influence is low leadership and great influence is great leadership.
The inability of many leaders not to understand the vital role influence plays in their leadership has been their albatross.
If a leader is meant to have influence the necessary question to ask and answer is what influence is. Influence is the ability to affect peoples’ beliefs and actions. For a leader to be effective he must, of necessity, be able to affect the beliefs and actions of the people he is a leader over. If the leader does not adequately affect the beliefs of his followers, whether they be his staff or team or church members his leadership is bound to face turbulent waters and the whole ship stands the risk of being disintegrated.
When we talk of the leader affecting the beliefs of his followers it has a number of implications. He must be able to affect their thinking patterns. Every rational human being has the ability to think and the thinking pattern is based on a number of factors such as upbringing, education, exposure, experiences etc. Attitudes, reactions and responses to people, things, events etc is heavily hinged on thinking patterns. When a leader has people he is leading they are all coming into the organization with various thinking patterns and if the leader cannot affect their thinking pattern to conform to the set objective of the organization there will be trouble. He will be leading people whose thinking will not be in tandem with his and leadership is bound to be hindered. Wherever there are two people there will always be differences of thought patterns but a good leader will affect the thought patterns of the whole group so they can think and act as “one man” without the individuals losing their individual identities and uniqueness.
Without the leader affecting the thought pattern of his followers he will not be able to have their conviction to get things done the way they ought to be done. Consensus, agreement, harmony will be difficult to arrive at and precious time will be wasted on unnecessary arguments and propositions arising from divergent opinions and thoughts.
“Can two walk except they be agreed.” Amos 3;3
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To be continued
and then