A LOT OF POSITIONAL LEADERS DO THAT OVER THE YEARS. THEY TELL THEIR PEOPLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS: “HEY, WAIT! I’M THE LEADER. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FOLLOW ME.” BUT THAT DOESN’T WORK. PEOPLE MIGHT BE POLITE TO YOU, BUT THEY WON’T REALLY FOLLOW.
IT’S SIMILAR TO SOMETHING FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER MARGARET THATCHER ONCE SAID: “BEING IN POWER IS LIKE BEING A LADY. IF YOU HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE YOU ARE, YOU AREN’T.”
THE BOTTOM LINE FOR FOLLOWERS IS WHAT A LEADER IS CAPABLE OF. ULTIMATELY, THAT’S THE REASON PEOPLE WILL LISTEN TO AND ACKNOWLEDGE AS THEIR LEADER. AS SOON AS THEY NO LONGER BELIEVE YOU CAN DELIVER, THEY WILL STOP LISTENING.
WHENEVER YOU LEAD PEOPLE, IT’S AS IF THEY CONSENT TO TAKE A JOURNEY WITH YOU. THE WAY THAT TRIP IS GOING TO TURN OUT IS PREDICTED BY YOUR CHARACTER. WITH GOOD CHARACTER, THE LONGER THE TRIP IS, THE BETTER IT GETS. BUT IF YOUR CHARACTER IS FLAWED, THE LONGER THE TRIP IS, THE WORSE IT WILL SEEM TO THEM. WHY? BECAUSE NO ONE ENJOYS SPENDING TIME WITH SOMEONE HE DOESN’T TRUST.
Every leader has a certain amount of change in his pocket when he starts in a new leadership position. From then on, he either builds up his change or pays it out. If he makes one bad decision after another, he keeps paying out change. Then one day, after making one last bad decision, he is going to reach into his pocket and realize he is out of change. It doesn’t even matter if the blunder was big or small. When you’re out of change, you’re out as the leader. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf points to the significance of character:, “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character.
But if you must be without one, be without strategy.” Character and leadership credibility always go hand in hand. Anthony Harrigan, president of the U.S. Business and Industrial Council, said, The role of character always has been the key factor in the rise and fall of nations. And one can be sure that America is no exception to this rule of history. We won’t survive as a country because we are smarter or more sophisticated but because we are—we hope—stronger inwardly. In short, character is the only effective bulwark against internal and external forces that lead to a country’s disintegration or collapse. Character makes trust possible. And trust makes leadership possible. That is the Law of Solid Ground.
LEADERS WITHOUT INNER STRENGTH CAN’T BE COUNTED ON DAY AFTER DAY BECAUSE THEIR ABILITY TO PERFORM CHANGES CONSTANTLY.
NBA GREAT JERRY WEST COMMENTED, “YOU CAN’T GET TOO MUCH DONE IN LIFE IF YOU ONLY WORK ON THE DAYS WHEN YOU FEEL GOOD.”
IF YOUR PEOPLE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT FROM YOU AS A LEADER, AT SOME POINT THEY WON’T LOOK TO YOU FOR LEADERSHIP.
JOHN MORLEY OBSERVED, “NO MAN CAN CLIMB OUT BEYOND THE LIMITATIONS OF HIS OWN CHARACTER.” THAT’S ESPECIALLY TRUE WHEN IT COMES TO LEADERSHIP. TAKE, FOR INSTANCE, THE CASE OF NHL COACH MIKE KEENAN. AS OF MID-1997, HE HAD A NOTEWORTHY RECORD OF PROFESSIONAL HOCKEY VICTORIES: THE FIFTH GREATEST NUMBER OF REGULAR-SEASON WINS, THE THIRD GREATEST NUMBER OF PLAY-OFF VICTORIES, SIX DIVISION TITLES, FOUR NHL FINALS APPEARANCES, AND ONE STANLEY CUP.
Yet despite those commendable credentials, Keenan was unable to stay with a single team for any length of time.
In eleven and a half seasons, he coached four different teams. And after his stint with the fourth team—the St. Louis Blues—he was unable to land a job for a long time. Why? Sportswriter E. M. Swift said of Keenan, “The reluctance to hire Keenan is easily explicable. Everywhere he has been, he has alienated players and management.” Evidently, his players didn’t trust him. Neither did the owners, who were benefiting from seeing their teams win. It seems he kept violating the Law of Solid Ground. Craig Weatherup explains, “You don’t build trust by talking about it. You build it by achieving results, always with integrity and in a manner that shows real personal regard for the people with whom you work.” When a leader’s character is strong, people trust him, and they trust in his ability to release their potential. That not only gives followers hope for the future, but it also promotes a strong belief in themselves and their organization.
WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE STRENGTH WITHIN, YOU CAN’T EARN RESPECT WITHOUT. AND RESPECT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FOR LASTING LEADERSHIP. HOW DO LEADERS EARN RESPECT? BY MAKING SOUND DECISIONS, ADMITTING THEIR MISTAKES WHEN THEY MAKE THEM, AND PUTTING WHAT’S BEST FOR THEIR FOLLOWERS AND THE ORGANIZATION AHEAD OF THEIR PERSONAL AGENDAS.
J. R. Miller once observed, “The only thing that walks back from the tomb with the mourners and refuses to be buried is the character of a man. This is true. What a man is survives him. It can never be buried.”
MANY WOULD ARGUE THAT MCNAMARA’S ADMISSION CAME THIRTY YEARS AND FIFTY-EIGHT THOUSAND LIVES TOO LATE. THE COST OF VIETNAM WAS HIGH, AND NOT JUST IN HUMAN LIVES. AS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’S TRUST IN THEIR LEADERS ERODED, SO DID THEIR WILLINGNESS TO FOLLOW THEM. PROTESTS LED TO OPEN REBELLION AND TO SOCIETYWIDE TURMOIL. THE ERA THAT HAD BEGUN WITH THE HOPE AND IDEALISM CHARACTERIZED BY JOHN F. KENNEDY ULTIMATELY ENDED WITH THE MISTRUST AND CYNICISM ASSOCIATED WITH RICHARD NIXON.
Whenever a leader breaks the Law of Solid Ground, he pays a price in his leadership.
No leader can break trust with his people and expect to keep influencing them. Trust is the foundation of leadership. Violate the Law of Solid Ground, and you’re through as a leader.
Educational book share: THE 21 IRREFUTABLE LAWS OF LEADERSHIP - JOHN C. MAXWELL
However hard we try, the reality is that we humans can never will miracles into being.
This fact, this lack of control, is one of the reasons the secular generally turn a blind eye to the miraculous in life. They fail to see the grace - and hence the proof - of God and God's Love. Within nations primary identity as a scientist, we want and like proof. Being as much a logical sort as a mysterious one, it expects statistical proof whenever possible to convince us of things. But throughout the ages as republic continued to mature, it became more and more impressed by the frequency of statistically highly improbable events. In their very improbability 'We The People' have seen the fingerprints of God.
Webster's dictionary defines serendipity as "the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for." This definitions has several intriguing features. One is that serendipity is termed a gift, which implies that some people possess it while others don't, that some people are lucky and others are not. it is a major thesis of many that grace, manifested in part by "valuable or agreeable things not sought for," is available to everyone. But while some take advantage of it, others do not.
* They serve to nurture - support, protect, and enhance - human life and spiritual Growth.
* The mechanism of their action is either incompletely understandable (as in the case of dreams) or totally obscure (as in the case of the paranormal phenomenon) according to the principles of natural law as interpreted by current scientific thinking.
*Their occurrence is frequent, routine, commonplace, and essentially universal among humanity.
*Although they are potentially influenced by human consciousness, their origin is outside the conscious will and beyond the process of conscious decision making.
Those who are properly skeptical and scientific-minded may be inclined to dismiss this force since we can't touch it, and have no decent way to measure it. Yet it exists. It is real.
Understanding of that is limited, again, by difficulty in dealing with paradox. Many want to identify things rationally. The paradox of grace is that, on the one hand it is earned. The bible has already mentioned a number of reasons why our becoming blessed by grace is a matter of choice.
On the other hand, try as we might to obtain grace; grace comes to us. The paradox that we both choose grace and our chosen by grace is the essence of the phenomenon of serendipity, which was defined as "the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for."
Revelation: believe that the radical healing influence of grace is manifested to us not only through such widely improbable circumstances but also through revelation.
Whenever something happens that is beyond coincidence, the chances are great that the hand of God is at work.
Educational Book Share: The Road Less Traveled and Beyond - Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety. M.Scott Peck, M.D.
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