Spirit of Leadership

WHAT IS A TRUE LEADER? involve the component of influence, I believe that this is an incomplete description because it does not distin guish what kind of influence or the source or cause of that influence. Remember the story in chapter one of the teenage boy who had a gun and ordered everyone to “hit the ground”? What would you do in such a situation? You would prob ably do what he said because he would influence you to take a certain action through fear and intimidation, but I doubt you would consider his behavior to be leadership. The fact is that true leadership is not control or manipu lation of others, but it is other people’s willful submission of their authority to yours, motivated by inspiration. T RUE LEADERSHIP IS MARKED BY OTHERS ’ WILLFUL SUBMISSION OF THEIR AUTHORITY TO YOURS . There are many people, past and present, who have influenced others using threats and violence, but we don’t call that true leadership. We call it manipulation, oppres sion, or dictatorship. Nero, Hitler, and Idi Amin were all influential. They exerted their wills over people, but they were not leaders in the true sense. A WORKING DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP True leadership fundamentally requires the respon sibility of taking followers into the exciting unknown and creating a new reality for them. For over thirty years, I have dedicated myself to the study of the subject of lead ership. After thousands of hours of study, research, and reading hundreds of books on the subject, I determined

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