How to be a Great Leader

I like to read about great leaders especially those who dropped out of school and still made it. It makes me sort of ashamed because some of us have gone beyond them and have not done half of what they did – I am young though. It is also similar to some of the disabled brothers and sisters who have had more impact on mankind than the other brothers with bodies intact.

What I have learnt about these great men is that, what you see them do today, they practiced many years back. When the opportunity came because they had faith in what they were doing, they didn’t turn to something else. Don’t move away from what you know how to do best, if you stay in that area and develop it you can become the best. That is why get educated, to become what we really are, to deliver better results with what we already had.

 

Let’s see some others things I think have helped them.

Vision

These are men and women who dreamed big. Nobody would arrest you for dreaming big. You must have vision. What you see is what you get. You become what you see. Vision is what you hoped to be in the future. What you want your destiny to be like. You can look at some of our leaders today and you know this is the kind of life I want to live. That is vision.

Are you a visionary? You better be because that is what would direct and guide your efforts in life.  I think Africa’s problem is not with resources, we have everything minus good leadership, while those who don’t have everything but good leadership are making it. Good leaders are the visionary ones. It’s not too late to have a vision. Draft your own vision today; it would become the script for your life.

Planning

These men are great planners. They do things by the book. Whether you plan or not you have planned. Because you have to live, you’d live your life some way, therefore why not plan properly.

Planning would set your journey in order. It would guide you forward and serve as a check in your life. When you plan put dates on it, they would serve as targets for you to reach. It would allow check your progress. Whether you think you can meet the date or not still plan.

Self confidence  

They believed in themselves. They believed that they could do it. When I see artists and they act so superior I don’t get angry. When self confidence or self belief is overflowing that is when you see it radiate from people like that. Self confident people lift up their foreheads and their chests, they don’t entertain defeating thoughts. It is possibility all the way for them. You’d find them with things that encouraged them to go ahead. In life nothing is fixed so Henry Ford once said, ‘whether you think you can or you can’t either way you are right’. Another great man also said, ‘our minds were blank from birth and it is like an empty slate what you write on it would be your life’.

Great friends

If you like do a little bit of research about great leaders, you’d see that they are linked together. Great minds like to network with great minds. Your company determines how far you go. I have a friend and when he talks to me, I always feel like I can conquer the world. I have decided to get close to him, he fires me up so much and he doesn’t know it.

In our days it is difficult to think that you can make it, hence when you have somebody to fire you up always draw closer. Your friends should also be better than you so that they can draw you up to their level. Friends

Money

Don’t underestimate the power of money. Whatever you do factor money into it. With it you can do so much in life. Be careful not to take the backside of money; that is, people say ‘I have no money so I can’t do it’. That is bad enough. In life it is not everything that you do that you’d have all the resources ready. So start and the resources would come.

Learn to save. The banks taught me this lesson. When they loan you big money and you are paying in installments they treat you like trash and yet their interest is humongous. If you don’t know how to save it’d reduce your impact in life.

Self education

The bane of modern day graduates is their degrees. Once they graduate they have gone on retire from learning. In my article, I stressed the importance of learning. You have to be studious. Those who drop out of school and still do well, study by themselves at night for many years. Bilgates, steve jobs, Brian Tracy, Kennedy Agyapong and Despite to mention but a few. They learned about everything. Professions evolve and those who keep up would find themselves at the top.  

If you have some education, good, start something. We believe in too much education. With the little that I know, if you really want to be big business man or woman you have to start practicing early. It is not something that is cooked in the classroom.

The human spirit

I believe man was made to serve a God. Most professionals would not like to talk about this but I will because with me, when things are not right within me, I feel like my compass is broken. Find your maker and have your inner peace and be guided.