Who is A Leader?
You might be tempted to look back whenever you hear that question. Who are they talking to? Maybe the pristine-looking Harvard-trained business executive who seems to have all the answers, you think. It can't be me.
Yet, they are talking to you. Yes! You, the leader. Do I look like a leader? Yes, you do. Leadership is not written on the face, by the way. My friend, you are a leader. Why? Because you were created to be one.
The bible tells us in Genesis 1:26-28 that God gave man dominion over everything. If that is not leadership, then what is? Of course, I understand that leadership levels differ, depending on whom you can influence to follow you.
I always tell people that you are definitely leading someone, whether at work or at home. Worst case scenario, you lead yourself. Self-leadership is a thing. You have a life to run, so lead yourself and give an account to God.
If I am a Leader, why am I not called one by men and society?
Simply put, you have not matured into your God-given role. It is a process.
Your journey through life shapes your thinking, which in turn influences your actions, and your actions create the results that people see and label as leadership.
My advice is to always remember who you are - a leader. Don't let the circumstances of life define you. They may not always be pleasant, but you will overcome with faith in God and intentional actions to shape your path.
What can I do to become a Leader men see?
Good question! To successfully emerge as a leader, there are a few things you can do.
I will suggest a few things you can do on your path to leadership.
But first, what type of leader do you want to be?
You can adopt many leadership models, but as a person of faith, I suggest a model of leadership that combines biblical principles with modern leadership theories.
The faith-based leader who understands that life is more spiritual than physical. A person who will blend leadership skills with spiritual discernment and faith.
What steps can you take now towards becoming a leader?
You can start by doing the following:
1. Seek Mental Clarity
2. Create a Vision Statement
3. Develop a Mission Statement
4. Set SMART Goals
5. Abolish Fear of Failure
6. Take a Leap of Faith
7. Improve Decision-Making
8. Show up When Needed
9. Remain Focused
10. Stay Motivated
Let's look a them in Greater detail:
1. Seek Mental Clarity:
Your mental game has to change. What are you telling yourself? Silence any inner critic telling you that you are not good enough or not qualified to be a leader because of your current circumstances, which, by the way, do not determine who you are.
People always ask, "Are leaders made or born?" Yes, some people might display leadership skills naturally because of their personality traits, but leadership can always be learned and improved on.
Tell yourself that you were created to be a leader by God. Be responsible wherever you find yourself and always do your best. You are a leader first in your mind before it shows in your life.
2. Create a Vision
3. Craft a Mission Statement:
Your personal mission statement concisely declares your values, purpose, and goals, which act as a roadmap for your life. This helps you stay focused as you make decisions and align your actions with your core beliefs.
Crafting a personal mission statement is an empowering exercise that helps define who you are and where you're headed in life. By reflecting on your goals, values, and purpose, you create a guiding framework for meaningful living.
A well-crafted mission statement helps define your goals and purpose. It keeps you grounded amidst distractions and aligns choices with your values. A personal mission statement inspires you to pursue meaningful objectives and encourages reflection and growth.
To create an effective mission statement, consider the impact you want to make and define what you hope to achieve both personally and professionally. Before you start the process, reflect on your purpose and why you are here.
Think through and identify what you are meant to do. Try to articulate your belief system and core values. Understand what matters to you and which principles govern your life. Consider the personal and professional impact you seek to have. What will be your legacy? By crafting your mission statement, you are creating a guiding framework for meaningful living.
A well-thought-out mission statement provides clarity and focus for your daily actions while contributing to your personal growth. It helps with decision-making and resilience when the going gets tough. It anchors your identity and core beliefs to what matters most.
4. Set SMART Goals:
Setting SMART goals can enhance your life. When you consistently set goals, you can create a roadmap for a more purposeful, happy, and fulfilling life.
The clarity in goal-setting can help you realize outcomes that foster happiness, purpose, and overall well-being. First, let's look at what SMART goals are. It is an acronym which I will describe briefly:
Specific: This means clearly defined goals that are specific rather than ambiguous. For instance, when you say"Get healthier," it sounds vague and does not tell you in specific terms what you mean. When you add "Walk for 30 minutes in the park, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday," it provides clarity and is more specific. Neuroscience suggests that specific goals activate focused brain regions, enhancing motivation and execution.
Measurable: Providing a measure helps you know when you achieve it because there are tangible metrics everyone can see. Measurement can be quantitative (e.g., weight, numbers, size) or qualitative (e.g., number of meaningful conversations, specific outcomes). Providing tangible feedback transforms abstract desires into concrete progress. Tracking progress triggers dopamine release, reinforcing positive behaviors.
Achievable: When you consider the achievability of that goal, it prevents discouragement as you work towards it. Setting unrealistic goals can lead to frustration and abandonment. Break down large goals into smaller, achievable steps. This creates little wins along the way and fosters a sense of accomplishment while building momentum. Consider your current resources, time constraints, and skill levels when setting goals with timeframes.
Relevant: Relevance connects goals to your core values and life purpose. This creates intrinsic motivation, the most powerful driver of behavior. Goals that align with your values provide a sense of meaning and fulfillment, which enhances overall well-being. Relevance ensures that your efforts are directed toward what truly matters to you.
Time-bound: Setting time-bound goals creates a sense of urgency and prevents procrastination. Deadlines also provide a framework for accountability and help prioritize tasks. Set realistic deadlines and consider the complexity of the goal and your available time.
When you set SMART goals and accomplish them, you can create a roadmap for a more purposeful, happy, and organized life that is both meaningful and fulfilling.
5. Abolish Fear of Failure:
The fear of failure is a powerful force, capable of paralyzing you, stifling your ambitions, and preventing you from reaching your full potential. It's a universal human experience, but it doesn't have to dictate your life. Research has shown your brain is wired to avoid perceived threats. Failure can be seen as a threat to your social standing or survival. Societal pressures, perfectionism, and negative experiences can reinforce the belief that failure is unacceptable.
Believing that your abilities are fixed and unchangeable makes you fear failure. This mindset can limit your growth. You can grow in many ways. Every day presents a process of growth, and your ability to accomplish and show up stronger as you learn new things.
Negative self-perception can amplify the fear of failure, making you doubt your capabilities. Fear of failure limits your willingness to take risks, hindering personal and professional growth. Overcoming fear builds resilience, allowing you to bounce back from setbacks and learn from your mistakes.
Fear can stifle creativity; overcoming it opens up new possibilities and innovative solutions. Embracing challenges and pursuing your passions leads to a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
Instead of suppressing or denying your fear, acknowledge its presence and validate your feelings. Acknowledging your fear allows you to process it and move forward. Say to yourself, "It's okay to feel afraid.”
Move forward despite fears because courage is not the absence of fear but moving forward despite your fear. Shift your perspective from viewing failure as a negative outcome to seeing it as a valuable learning experience.
Accept that mistakes are a natural part of any learning process and practice self-compassion. Self-compassion reduces self-criticism and allows you to learn from your mistakes without dwelling on them. Treat yourself with kindness and understanding.
Acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes. Focus on learning from your mistakes and moving forward. You can gradually dismantle the fear of failure and embrace a life of courage, resilience, and growth.
6. Take a Leap of Faith:
Embracing the unknown is not easy. These moments can be terrifying, but they also hold immense growth and transformation potential. As a leader, you must learn to navigate them with courage, resilience, and a strategic approach.
A leap of faith isn't about blind optimism or reckless abandon. It's about making a conscious decision to move forward despite fear and uncertainty, based on intuition, preparation, and a belief in your ability to adapt.
It involves acknowledging that the future is unknown and that control is an illusion. Listening to your inner voice and gut feelings. Making informed decisions based on available information. Being willing to adjust your course as circumstances change, because a leader has to be flexible and agile.
7. Improve Decision-Making:
Decisions shape your life. The choices you make determine your paths, your happiness, and your success. Quality decisions empower you to own your life and shape your destiny. It minimizes the likelihood of making choices you'll later regret. Making quality decisions leads to greater satisfaction, fulfillment, and overall happiness. It increases the probability of achieving your goals and realizing your potential.
As a leader, you have to deliberately improve the quality and speed of your decision-making. Take your time to evaluate all information available to you, but do not be paralysed ti inaction. Research has shown that your brain is prone to biases like confirmation bias (seeking information that confirms existing beliefs) and availability bias (overestimating the likelihood of events that are easily recalled). So, you have to be careful.
Emotions play a significant role in decision-making, sometimes overriding rational thought. Don't make decisions in haste or in anger. Stress and fatigue can also impair the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for rational decision-making. Making numerous decisions depletes cognitive resources, leading to poor choices.
Focus on one decision at a time, even if you need to make multiple decisions at once, for instance, in an emergency. You will first calm down, assess the situation, and then check which action you need to take first.
8. Show up When Needed:
Try to be available when needed in your circle of influence. Participate in community-building activities. Deliberately grow the value, strength, and size of your network. Your network is your networth.
You might be an introvert, but try as much as you can to show up when called and offer your expertise, your know-how, or just a simple helping hand in your community. This builds your visibility and impact over time as you grow.
A day will come when others look to you for guidance and leadership. That becomes your external validation as you quietly transform and emerge as a leader whom men see.
9. Remain Focused:
Stay focused on growth and contribution. As you give of yourself, you will learn, improve, and grow in ways you did not expect. Be a lifelong learner and keep your eyes on the ball. Use the vision statement you created to propel yourself to become a better you.
Where you are going tells you how you will go and what you should take with you. Once you know your destination, your mission statement becomes your road map, and your SMART goals help you hit your milestones. With focus, you plan your time and engage in what you need.
You do not allow yourself to be distracted by just anything. It helps you to know what to accept and what not to accept in your life. Many people have problems saying "No" and feel guilty about that, but with focus, that guilt is removed because some things are distractions you don't need.
10. Stay Motivated:
Motivation ignites action and propels you towards your goals. Sometimes, you find it, and other times, it's nowhere to be found. Motivation is a complex interplay of neurological, psychological, and social factors. Your expectation of a reward releases the “happiness” hormone dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain’s reward system. Motivation is needed to live a purposeful life.
You can increase your motivation, live purposefully, and unlock your full potential. However, chronic stress hinders motivation by depleting mental and physical resources. Learn to tackle stress and burnout to stay motivated.
Stress and burnout have become part of our fast-paced, always-changing world. Harvard research shows that prolonged stress can lead to burnout. Left unchecked, they can lead to serious health problems, diminished productivity, and a significant decline in overall well-being, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Your health and well-being should be prioritized. You cannot fulfill your purpose in poor health; stress and burnout can set you back. To stay motivated, choose your well-being for a happier, more productive, and purposeful life.
Leading by Design
As a faith-based leader, you must lead by design, keeping in view the leadership demands in your physical and spiritual life. You have a spiritual charge to bring God's kingdom to your area of influence. You are a reflection of Christ and should be seen as such. The Lord Jesus was an intentional Leader who lived by design.
Leadership must be effective in a world demanding agility, innovation, and purpose-driven action. The most effective leaders aren't just responding to circumstances; they are intentionally shaping their approach, their teams, and their impact. That is a proactive and deliberate approach to leadership.
It involves consciously defining your leadership philosophy, understanding your desired outcomes, and strategically implementing behaviors and systems to achieve them. It's about moving from leading by instinct, habit, or a set of rules to leading with intention and foresight.
Leading by design is based on the power of intentionality. It emphasizes consciously articulating your core values, beliefs about people, and principles that guide your leadership actions. What kind of leader do you aspire to be? What impact do you want to have? This is your cardinal philosophy.
Leading by design means defining the results you want to achieve before taking any action, whether in tangible goals, team culture, individual growth, or overall impact. This clarity provides focus and direction.
Being intentional in leadership means anticipating challenges, identifying opportunities, and developing deliberate action plans to achieve desired outcomes.
You will need to set clear goals, allocate resources effectively, and establish processes. You need to understand how your words and actions impact others and intentionally choose approaches that foster trust, collaboration, and motivation.
Instead of relying solely on your individual effort, you need to create systems, processes, and structures that support your desired outcomes. Be a continuous learner and constantly seek feedback to improve.
Don't fear constructive criticism, but always check if there is a grain of truth in it. If true, correct yourself. If not, discard and move on. Seek meaningful connections and work for the greater and common good.
Conclusion
A true leader is not about rigid control, but about leading with purpose and intent. As a leader, you intentionally shape the environment and outcomes you desire.
Be an effective, inspiring, and purposeful leader who empowers others and drives sustainable success by embracing a proactive, strategic, and values-driven approach to leadership.
The journey of becoming a leader is one of continuous growth and intentional action, ultimately leading to a more fulfilling and impactful leadership experience for you and those you lead.
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