Developing a Vision

the vision

Some few weeks ago, I called a friend of mine to congratulate him on a new role he has picked up in the church. At age 25, his passion for the Lord and love for the flocks our Lord God has left in our charge has seen his elevation to be part of the new elected Elders of the Church. As we kept on talking; he drew my attention on the possibility of me taking over as the leader of the youth ministry in church because he may have to resign that position to make time for a higher calling.

After the conversation, I kept on thinking of how I am going to lead the Lord’s people if the mantle is handed to me. “How do I develop, carry and spread this vision to the people I would be put in charge of? “, I kept asking myself. One of the major challenges in the world today is the challenge of leadership; as one great speaker puts it, if you think you are leading, look behind you, you may only just be taking a walk.

In this post, I intend sharing with you bits and pieces of how you can develop a vision for the future.

What every leader must do.

The one quality that every leader must have is to have a clear and exciting vision for the future. Excellent leaders take time to think through and come out with a clear picture of where the organization would be in one, two, three and five years to come. The leader does not have the challenge of only developing the vision, but is faced with the challenge of communicating the vision to the followers. Come to think of it, of what use is a vision if people cannot buy into it?

Motivating the people to buy into the vision

The vision of future possibilities, of what can be, arouses motivation for people to give of their best. People only buy into visions if they have a clear picture of that vision, get the people involved in creating the vision; if they can see themselves in the vision, they would own it and run with it even in your absence. To encourage others and instil confidence in them you need to lead by example. Become enthusiastic of where the company or institution is heading, talk about the vision everywhere you meet your colleagues and let them give input into the vision. It could simply be like this, “So what do you think of us acquiring that piece of property as a new office complex? You would have a better office area to work in ”  Once the person sees himself in the vision , the fire sparks within and in no time , the whole office has caught up with these new wave of change in attitude and belief.

What next?

Project forward 3-5 years and imagine your ideal future vision, what does it look like? What steps can you take immediately to begin turning your future vision into your current reality?

Benefits of Life Long Learning

In my previous post , I defined what lifelong learning is and even went further to explore Growth learning and maintenance lifelong learning, You  know, man  is a creature of growth and anyone who has stopped learning have  actually stopped growing. We  live in a knowledge economy where the more you know the better it gets, however, what is more beneficial is not the knowledge acquired as knowledge is only potential power, the utilization of the knowledge is what makes the world we live a better place. Today, I would like to share with you some benefits of lifelong learning, but before that let’s just take a look at another type of lifelong learning .If you are ready, here we go:

• Shock learning

Brian Tracy defines this  type of learning as shock learning ,this is where something happens that contradicts or reverse a piece of knowledge or understanding that you already have, shock learning can be extremely valuable if you act upon it .Unfortunately, most people are creatures of habit. When something happens that is completely unexpected, they choose to ignore it in favour of the old information with which they are more comfortable.

Now a look at some of the benefits of lifelong learning:

• Lifelong learning develops our natural abilities

We are all born with innate abilities; someone may be naturally good at singing, or running a 100 metre race and coming top every time. However, it takes conscious effort and time to develop these natural abilities. A self motivated conscious pursuit of knowledge would unlock certain potentials within us and sharpen the abilities we already have

•  Lifelong learning helps us adapt to the changing society

Society is constantly changing, with the outburst of technology, what you knew some ten years ago would be obsolete. Some years gone past, the most common medium of communication across countries was through the snail mail. Fast forward into the 21^st century, and man has been able to break the communication gap, sitting behind your laptop you are able to communicate with people of varying race. Lifelong learning enables you to adapt yourself to these changes brought by technology.

•  Lifelong learning creates a curious, hungry mind.

There is a big world  out there- new inventions waiting to be discovered, countries yet to  be explored, and books yet to be written. Dedicating yourself to lifelong learning creates within an hungry mind, our drive and desire to learn fuels itself and we keep going, constantly looking for more to feed our hungry minds.

What Next?

Don’t let it stop here, challenge yourself to growth by feeding on new resources each passing day. Be eager for knowledge, and you would realise that; the more you know the better it gets

Why you must always learn

Henry Ford once said “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” I’m sure I am part of the very few who believes that learning still continues when one is out of school. Today, it is uncommon to see people who are out of school reading any relevant material accept for some newspaper article a friend may have recommended or glancing through the pages of a popular magazine they might have picked out on their way from town. To prove my point, when was the last time you read a complete book? I’m not talking about a novel, or a fiction book but a good book that after going through the first few pages you learn something valuable that contributes to your personal and professional development.

In the 21^st century, which is also termed the information or technological age; your success in life is dependent on your ability to expand your mind and strive for continuous education. That is why I recommend lifelong learning; lifelong learning helps you to leapfrog ahead of the competition making you a top notch in your field.

In this post, I intend sharing with you some benefits of lifelong learning; come to think of it how would you benefit from this post if you have no clue of what lifelong learning is?

Before I delve deep into the waters, let’s take few minutes to understand what lifelong learning is and even go further to investigate the different types of education you can have whether deliberately or in random haphazard fashion.

What is lifelong learning (LLL)?

Wikipedia defines lifelong learning as the lifelong, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. As such, it not only enhances social inclusion, active citizenship and personal development but also competitiveness and employability.

From the above definition, I believe the starting point  for lifelong learning is the desire to learn and acquire knowledge from every angle, a person dedicated to lifelong learning  has the drive to not only go seek for knowledge but to do something with the knowledge acquired. Lifelong learning is not only confined to the classroom, but takes place throughout life and in a range of situations.

Having talked about lifelong learning taking place throughout all phases of life and in a range of situations; let’s take a brief look at some of the different types of lifelong learning.

• Maintenance Learning

Maintenance learning can be likened to going to the gym and doing a light physical exercise to keep you at a particular level of fitness; it does not necessarily increase your fitness level or improve your condition in any way. Maintenance learning would therefore be defined as a way of keeping current with your field by reading an occasional book and subscribing to current magazines and newsletters in your field.

• Growth Learning

You can also consider another type of learning that is geared towards adding knowledge and skills to your repertoire that you did not have before. For instance, if you decide to learn some basic computing skills to help expand your business relation with your prospective customers or decide to learn another language to help you communicate with foreign clients who do not speak English or any native language that form of learning is growth learning One good thing about growth learning is that it helps you expand your mind and you acquire information that you did not have before to enable you to do things that you could not do before. I have been a major beneficiary of growth learning; I always go the extra mile to empty my pocket just to fill my head with new knowledge geared towards my career enhancement

What Next?

Which of the learning processes do you involve yourself in? Please drop me your comment. In my next post we take a closer look at the benefits of Lifelong learning

A Leader with a Purpose: Biblical Leadership

Hi, hope you are enjoying my post on the Biblical perspective of leadership? In my last post I began with integrity as a trait of a good leader with emphasis on Samuel’s speech to his people.

(1Samuel 12:1-8)

leadership

 

Today, I would like to share with you other common traits of great leaders, culled from the book, The Bible on Leadership. It is often said that, show me a leader without a goal and I would show you a man with a boat and nowhere to go.One outstanding trait of great leaders is purpose. A leader with a purpose does not only accomplish much but sets the fire in others to carry on. Purposeful leaders are not self centered, people are his priority, their needs are his needs, and he sells his hopes and aspirations with his followers and goes the extra mile to put smiles on their faces. Unfortunately in our society today, we just have positional leadership who obviously lack clear sense of where they are heading the flocks to. When a leader is dedicated to a purpose, and when the entire ‘troops’ see that dedication is unwavering and ‘‘for real,’ great things happen.

I remember, some years ago, my local church was struggling to complete its building, past Church leaders failed to accomplish this task until we had a great leader whose single purpose was to finish the completion of the church building before the end of his administration as a resident minister. He was so committed to the project that in six months, the job was done. How come? The members identified with the vision of the leader and when they did, great things happened.

King David, faced with the daunting task of the construction of a temple, handed it over to his son Solomon, who admittedly lacked experience in the construction business. But David had also given himself wholeheartedly to this project: ‘‘With all my resources have I provided for the temple . . . gold for the gold work, silver for the silver . . . bronze . . . iron . . . onyx . . . stones of various colors. Besides I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver, over and above everything I have provided for this holy temple . . . Now who is going to consecrate himself today to the Lord?’’ (1 Chron. 29:2–5)

What David really meant was, ‘‘Who is going to buy into my vision and join hands with me” Like King David, every leader should have a  purpose road map so that in their absence competent successors can carry on with all uncompleted projects. Is it the same in our churches and even our nation? One Government fails to complete a project and the successor doesn’t see it as their priority, they begin chatting their own course. Church leaders and administrators come into office with their own agenda and vision, leaving the formers works untouched till they are true with their plans. Should this be the situation?

Great leaders with great purposes always face obstacles and opposition. Consider Nehemiah rebuilding process when he heard Jerusalem was in ruin. The colonial officials in Jerusalem ridiculed and opposed Nehemiah’s efforts to rebuild the wall. Tobiah the Ammonite chortled, ‘‘what they are building—if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones.’’ And Sanballat the Horonite chimed in, ‘‘what are those feeble Jews doing? . . . Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble— burned as they are?’’

(Neh. 4:2–3). One key indicator of a purposeful leader is the challenge and opposition you would face in trying to implement something of significance.

This just goes to show you that if your purpose is good and worthwhile, you will probably have some vocal opponents.

Biblical Perspective of Leadership

Last month I got the opportunity of facilitating a leadership discussion on my church facebook group. Because the discussion was for church folks, I decided to focus it on the biblical perspective of what leadership entails. The Bible is filled with great leadership examples which when carefully read would do a lot of good to humanity. To facilitate my discussion, I dug into my eBook archives on my laptop and came across one of my leadership books the perfectly provide the solutions we are all looking for, it is call the Bible on Leadership by Lorin Wolfe. After reading its content all over, I started the discussion with my group and it was eye opening. Today, I share with you some of the wisdom I glean from the book. Let’s start with Integrity in Leadership.

 INTEGRITY in LEADERSHIP

Here I stand. Testify against me in the presence of the Lord . . . Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed? From whose hand have I taken a bribe to make me shut my eyes? If I have done any of these, I will make it right.

‘‘You have not cheated or oppressed us,’’ they replied. ‘‘You have not

taken anything from anyone’s hand.’’ (1 Sam. 12:1–4)

Now, how many of today’s business, church or political leaders can stand before their followers and make such a profound statement? Lately, managers and leaders across the world have often left us wanting in this key area. For instance it is reported that Richard Nixon hired people to break into the headquarters of the opposing political party, then lied and claimed he had nothing to do with it. Bill Clinton, former US President had an affair with a White House intern a few years older than his daughter, then promptly denied that he had never participated in any sexual activity with her.

Integrity and honesty was key in biblical days from Moses to Matthew and would still remain one of the outstanding traits of a good leader. Who then is an honest and integral leader?

An honest and integral leader would not say one thing and do the other, their words and actions are all mixed up. He would not tell the Congregation to go on a 21 day fast when he knows he would barely complete the first seven day. He would not tell his followers to come for a meeting at 6:00 p.m only to find out he did not make it and late pile up a whole file of excuses to justify his lack of integrity. It doesn’t matter how noble or worthwhile your cause; if you haven’t earned people’s trust by constantly keeping your word and being true to your values, people won’t follow you too far. They may follow you to a point, but when the going gets tough, they’ll start to hang back or look around for another leader ,no one is going to line up to follow you through a deep mud puddle, let alone the Red Sea. The principle of integrity as a leader runs throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Consider the farewell speech of the disciple Paul to his followers:

I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions . . . They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see

his face again. (Acts 20:32–37)

What Next?

Think about this:

If you left your organization today, would your followers grieve so openly about losing

you, and if they did, would any of their grief relate to losing a leader of integrity?

But is integrity really attainable at the highest levels in modern business?

Can’t it be an impediment to material success? HAVE YOUR SAY