The Enduring Leader
The leader’s goal is not only to last, but to endure. We rightly admire things that last. We may live in a culture of instant gratification and ever – shortening attention spans, but we still know enough, to admire what endures.
This is also true when it comes to leadership. The leaders who make the biggest difference, are those with long tenure. Great impact, requires a lengthy term of leadership, and the leader who wants to make a difference, had better have thought, to stay a while.
People and organisations are resistant to change, and even when it happens, it can be undone in a flash, and return to old entrenched habits of thinking and ways, can be re-enacted. The most effective leaders, know to stay on the job, stay the course, determined, to see the task done. To reach deep into the hearts and minds of the followers, leaders had better make the commitment to endure, otherwise, your influence will disappear, about as fast as the stationery, with your name on it.
Observers of leadership, have long noted, that leaders often overestimate what can be accomplish in the short term, and underestimate what can be accomplished in the long term. Gut – wrenching analysis, of what we accomplish and experience, should be the norm. Leadership is an endurance test that will demand the best of anyone.
Leaders face countless frustrations, mind boggling complications, and pockets of resistance. Leaders make a difference, between success and failure, and leaders have to bare the burden of right decisions that sometimes hurt.
So here is the awful truth, some can fill a leadership position, but never really lead. It requires, convictional leadership that prizes endurance – the endurance of truth, truths we hold and beliefs we cherish, to take the form of convictions that frame our aspect of reality. Those who know the conviction to lead, must possess the commitment to stay, and the ability to wait.
Truth endures and so must we!
Convictional Leadership: Principles for Leadership that Matters
“The Enduring Leader” is the second blog in this series. The first one was titled “Your legacy as a Leader“.
This series of blogs will talk about what will it take to transform your leadership!
Effective leaders need more that administrative skills and vision.
They need to change the hearts and minds of those they lead.
Leadership like this requires passionate beliefs that can stand up to pressure from without and within.
Michael Buckton will share principles to crystalise your convictions and values and revolutionise your thinking, your decision making and communication and ultimately those whom you have the honour of leading.
We do not merely aim to add one more voice to the conversation but fundamentally change the way leadership is understood and practiced.
For the better part of the last three decades, leadership has been a major cultural pre-occupation and a professional obsession and yet something seems to be missing.
You will discover that leadership cannot be separated from passionately held beliefs and values.
We believe that the generation of leaders that leads with these deeply held beliefs and values will not only be ready to lead, but be part of a generation that sets the world ablaze.
