Leadership

Leadership is a capacity in an individual to be at the forefront of  a specific course with an ability to take responsibilities for others to follow.

It goes with an ability to do for others to follow and as such, it evolves the individual or the personnel that leads and that is why it is a whole lots of capacity.

In other words, leadership is all about championing a certain course with all that you get that make up your human character; meaning your embedded abilities, the capacities you have or you enjoy in life, your opportunities, your physical and spiritual estates that belong to you as a being are all created in an example for others to act in accordance to and thereof by you as an individual. In other words, one cannot lead if he or she does not have the ability act or show the way for those he or she leads to follow.

It is not enough to teach, instruct, rule or govern or exercise dominion or a controlling power over others as a ruler, governor, teacher, an instructor or a supervisor to be a leader. That is rulership not leadership and one does not necessarily need to go all that extra mile to achieve rulership but just put a measuring ruler, instruct them, take it or leave it; if they take it and it will be good for them and if they do leave it, you will be faced with coercion or damnation.

Governance is not leadership but a machinery or a system that is controlled by a certain structure or a group of people. Governance and rulership are in correlation; they do not necessarily stand in consonance with what the individual that governs or rules stand for or believe but what the system and the structure believes and stands for. The systems we have in our modern day societies are more of governance while in the dictatorial climes and the monarchical structures are more of rulership where the monarchs and the tyrants measure and dictate the decrees or the customs and the tradition for the people they rule and failure to do so they face severe penalties.
          
Leadership was mostly exemplified by the ancient warrior kings when the kings were the generals of wars and the protectors of their People themselves. Where leadership still exist in today's World are the families and our private business organizations where we are still somewhat forced by life experience not to turn away from. And the only reason why that still remains in modern era is simply because of the importance of the ruder to the ship; when the ruder is lost, the ship is direction less. I mean, the family is the most important union to every individual for the fact that it is the first and the closest to every human being and the private organizations as the economic powers or hands that feed the families are like the ruder to the ship.

Power of Leadership: power that surrounds leadership has remained the biggest force of human transformation right from the time of creation. Adam was different from Eve in terms of coordination and sense of reasoning due to the task of leadership that was embedded upon his shoulder to lead all living things dwelling in the garden of Eden. Abel was more responsible, accountable and dependable than Cain because he assumed and appreciated the values of leadership over his elderly brother, Cain who was more of the careless and reckless type over the affairs of important issues and of course that was what God saw in their heart. And at the end, we all know how he recklessly took away the life of his younger brother, Abel, due to mere issues of jealousy. Just as it is psychologically established, leadership is the biggest tool of human transformation. Once one assumed the role of leadership, everything about him changes towards that direction; his line of thoughts, his reasoning, his attitudes and what have you changes completely from his old self to his new course of life. That is why when people got married they easily got changed from the way of the single person to a full blown married person within that shortest period of post marital life. And that is also why people always complain about their old friends who have assumed certain positions of leadership of the fact that they no longer have their time. The truth of the matter is that the task of leadership is quite enormous and it overwhelms a whole lot of people and they might not necessarily know how to strike a balance.

Gifts of Leadership: Leadership is a gift embedded in every human being, though level of gifts varies; It is like the gift of talents in the famous biblical illustration of gifts of talents by Jesus Christ. That some were given ten denaries, some seven denaries, some two and some are one. And what it takes to deliver on leadership responsibility or to lead depends on these gifts of abilities which I called gifts of leadership. The ability of an individual to activate this gifts into an active force moves out an individual to become the leader he is seen and known to be. And these gift are in every man though some are small some are bigger but what matters mostly is the ability of an individual to identify and activate them makes the extraordinary difference in Men. See below some of this gifts of leadership:

Vision. The first most important gift of great leaders and successful people right from history and around the World is their strong eagle-eyed power of vision. The ability to eye something from afar while so many others have not seen its relevance and possibility is always the first drive and motivation behind the mission of every great leader. Some group of Women were caught doing a little gossip about me when I just founded Hop Alive International in Warri, the Niger Delta part of Nigeria where I come from and their point of gossip was; ''it is only big big things that Famous like to do whether he is a 419 or whether he wants to use people children do rituals oh him hm ''. One among them argued, ''but he is succeeding and that is what matters.'' There was a young Man who graduated from Delta State University, Abraka who just completed his National Youth Service Corpse (NYSC) and happened to be in the house where those group of Women were doing their usual gossip stuff and he chipped in, ''Famous is a Man of strong foresight''. Ever since I have been in my leadership journey away back from my childhood as back as I can remember, I have heard a whole lot of description about the Man Fame as am fondly called but I think the one of that young Man really cut in deeply.

Mission. Your mission is your primary target or the primary reason for your vision; I mean the motive behind your vision. Your vision is the platform or the organization you setup to run or the setup you choose to lead the people whom are following the ideas and the course you choose to champion. Like in my case, Hope Alive International as a leading micro credit non-governmental organization was my vision and its primary responsibility to help the poor rural Women of Niger-Delta was my mission.

Discipline: Without discipline leadership is forceless. Discipline is a deliberate subjection of the human body to pass through a certain pain either by a self subjection or by external coercion  primarily to gain or recover a certain value of what one aught to have lost in the future. And in this case it starts from your very self for others to follow as a leader.

Selflessness: Those who leads must not be seen with any iota sense of selfishness outside the genuineness of the course he champions otherwise all he labours for will be in vain. Those he leads will always betray him at the long run; they will never see him as their leader rather as someone who only uses the name of the course he champions to exploit others. At the end, he only built a bunch of betrayers around himself but no real successive followers to journey on the course with him to the end.

Kind and generous:  A leader must be benevolent, courteous, friendly, generous, gentle, liberal, sympathetic, empathetic, warmhearted nature, openly dispose to others, marked by consideration for others and always given to those in need .

Intelligence: A leader must be intelligent, it has nothing to do with either the person go to classroom school or not but his IQ ( intelligence quotient) to calculate things, events, scenarios and bring lines of reasoning together and adjudge what is best for the general good of everyone must be topnotch. After all at the long run, to succeed everything boils down to strategy, and how will you be able to strategies plans at the front line of action when you cannot calculate events, scenarios and compare situations to draw a conclusion for action? These are the things a leader must build and develop in himself overtime.

Strength: As a leader you need to be strong ; mentally, spiritually and physically, because naturally your task is always bigger than that of those you lead.

Those you lead always look up to you to show them the way not on instructive bases only but often on a practical reality and the onus lies on you not to fail because failure means not just failing your followers but most seriously yourself and the very course you lead.

The war lord general of the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria who bears the tittle name, Aare Ona Kankafo stands a good description of the role of strength in leadership.

The Aare Ona  Kankafo does not lead his warriors to war and fail to conquer because failure to do so means a journey of no return for him. Aare Ona Kakanfos were designed to win every war otherwise, they were expected to be perished in the war.

It is also noteworthy to sight example of the strength family heads put into family to underscores how important strength means to leadership.

Whenever a husband fails economically and there is no special intervention that comes to his aid, he ends up having stroke and the Wife who always to come into the picture by trying to fill the vacuum created by the lack of economic strength of the husband and happened not to have enough steam as well, as the case may be, she ends up having stroke equally and both end up dying miserably because of the pains that results from their lack of strength.

Just as wall is a protector to those who dwell in a house so also  strength is to leadership; it is the protector and the inner carriage of the one who hole leadership capacity.

Dependable: When we say a leader must be dependable we mean combining two attributes of trust and strength all together. Followers see their leader as their hero because they count on him when the road seems closed and no matter how rough the road is he faces it for the rescue of his people. Always a man of his words and trustworthy for his character.

Dependable Lieutenants: No matter how powerful you are you need dependable lieutenants and allies. To champion a course successfully, actualize your dreams and aspirations in life you get to fight several enemies and you alone cannot fight the whole world. It is a natural thing, so, you need a strong, competent and dependable lieutenants who strategies with you also helps you execute your plans.

Listening: In leadership listening is a great tool for information gathering. You are just one man in midst of so many and you cannot see everything at the same time. And that is why you must make yourself assessable to those who you lead to approach, complain to and pass information to. The information and complaints they pass onto you is a big message to you as to the direction your leadership should pay a certain concentration on and not to. Listening as the most effective tool of information gathering in leadership enables a leader to assess the impact, the effect, the immediate and long term reactions to his actions and urgent actions that he needs to take to cushion the effects of his actions both on a short term and on a long term bases.

Leadership is keyed to everything we do in life; leadership is power and we need power to put food on our table and turn things around for success. You must not necessarily champion a course for others to follow but the truth of the matter is that there is leadership embedded in every one of us that only needs to be identified and be activated in everything we do in life in order to achieve an optimum success.

Identify the leadership in you and take power; potentials alone cannot put food on your table but power alone can and leadership is power. Nobody will give you power, it is you yourself that will identify the powers in you that will enable you take the leadership of your World to the next realm.

Am Fame Agidife and I just want to add my voice to voice of wisdom.