Leadership and Influence

Leadership and influence are two topics very dear to me and I believe majority of my readers.
 
On Leadership 
I believe that good leaders are those who take responsibility to cause positive changes in their spheres of influence.

A paradigm shift is needed especially in our world of increasing complexity and continuous evolving trends. Anyone who wants to be a leader must acquire knowledge of both old and new trends as well as build on them gradually in order to stand out. Personally, I constantly look out for new ways for self-improvement through reading and acquiring relevant skills. 
To be a great leader, you must first influence and lead yourself. Self-improvement is one quality of a leader and as

Ernest Hemingway puts it;

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self” 

So many people get envious of the successes of others while failing to understand the level of self-development they must have put into their growth and ability to influence people to a cause. 

Instead of being envious, remember Leadership is process of learning, discipline and service. Being surrounded by great leaders, it is easy to get overwhelmed but I often remind myself that whatever they have, took constant improvement and development and if I can only go through the process I will reap the rewards following.
 
On Influence 
Influence talks about the quality of impact a person or a group of people have that makes others follow or emulate them. Leadership and influence go hand in gloves. Every leader has the capacity to influence their environment positively or negatively. Which is why every leader must understand the importance of their function.
 
I like to say leadership can be likened to character, and influence to charisma. This means a person can be trained to be a leader (I wouldn’t go into the discussion of nature and nurture but I think and stand by nurture). Charisma on the other hand is what you do that attracts others to you.

I’m sure you will agree with me that the concept of leadership in our world today has been associated with selfishness instead of selflessness. This can be seen not only in the political space but unfortunately other organization suffer from the plague of selfish leadership which focuses on solely what they can get from their positions rather than what they can give which is supposedly the Whole essence of leadership and influence. 

I’m often hurt by the misconception and I’m sure you get hurt too mere thinking about it. This is why it’s important that as future leaders who seek to positive influence, we must arm ourselves with knowledge, study past trends; learn from the positives, discard the negatives, build on them create new frameworks for positive influence to make our world a better place.

So here is my take, leadership should be about serving the people you have the opportunity or privilege to lead. This means servicing their needs and driving them to accomplish set goals. Doing this would definitely allow you to influence your environment positively. It is therefore clear from the above that a leader must always have influence but also, it is possible to have influence and not be a leader. Having influence attracts followers that believe and respect you.
 
Influence brings respect and respect gives you good reputation in your environment. Guess what? Respect or reputation gives you audience no matter the nature of people around. This I believe should be the goal of every young person interested in leadership and remaining influential. The
world can become a much better place if each of us take responsibility to lead and influence in our little spheres. It’s possible! 

Finally, I’ll like to urge you to keep learning and have a positive mind set. Also be determined to turn your information to physical and world change for a better future for our children.