Long, long ago, when I used to think about the kind of man I wanted to be, I would say I wanted to be a good husband, have a good wife and cute kids, have a successful academic and public life, and write great, great books.
Dreams change. Today, I get asked what I do with my life, and I’d say nothing means more to me than committing myself to provide for learners with disabilities, accessibility to quality education, knowledge, and information, including adaptability, and capability to overcome the challenges they face in acquiring education in a world community that’s largely designed for the non0disabled.
As a person with a disability, I make effort to demonstrate leadership at whatever I do. I want to remain a leader.
But- maybe- everyone, all of us, should share the same aspiration.
Leadership and how it inspires the world
The essence of what a good leader actually is has been debated for years, especially in an academic setting. As an educator, I know of all the trove of literature on leadership that I have gathered over the years.
A lot of things inspire the world, not like true leadership. Many things ring people’s bells, but nothing does so like leadership. In a world of magical beauty, there’s nothing more subduing, more captivating, and more mesmerizing than looking at the life and qualities of truly great political and business, and faith leaders who change the course the human history by the sheer quality of their character.
You can be a Leader
You do not have to behold an office to become a leader. No! Whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you are, regardless of your height, age, religion, or whether or not you are good-looking or ugly, and whatever the circumstances of your birth may be, you can discover yourself and be a leader.
Despite your disability, you can become a model and a light to the world.
As God’s children, we have the innate capacity to constantly rediscover, recreate, and fine-tune ourselves to changing times. We can get leaner and always can become much better. Going forward, we must work very hard to grow in body, in mind, in spirit, and in soul. I look at Jesus, and I see that among other qualities, there are three fundamental character traits that are essential to becoming a leader and master of one’s universe.
Let’s go!
Qualities of a Leader
Serve Others First- Selflessness
A very crucial leadership trait is selflessness. John C. Maxwell, a leadership expert says, “True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not to enrich the leader. And Nehru Gandhi once said, the only way to find oneself is to lose oneself in the service of others.
And for Robert Greenleaf, “Good leaders must first become good servants.” And the Holy Book is filled with verses of Christ encouraging us to be a leader. These verses do not say to lead by merely commanding others, but instead to serve others first.
The Good Society believes that good leaders can lead by putting the interests of others first, by investing in others, and by working together for common goals and objectives
Put others first
Putting others first is a fundamental leadership trait. In my own experience and the experiences of highly-accomplished people, our life begins to make a headway when we strive and continuously look for ways that care and help can be provided and used to advance the interests of others, rather than focus only on ourselves.
But each time you find yourself in a self-serving, self-loving, and self-leaking mode, deactivate it and remember what President Woodrow Wilson said, “You are not here to merely make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with great vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
A True Leader sees others as much important- Humility
What is humility? What does it really mean to be humble? Does it basically mean going about bowing down to others, or seeing oneself as a Lilliputian or a weakling in comparison to others.
Humility denotes earthiness. A leader must have a profound healthy sense of himself. He must possess self-awareness, understand who he is and where he stands among the scheme of things. Importantly, you have got to understand your strengths and weaknesses, including your fears, accepting them without boasting and using them constructively. That’s humility in its purest form. I don’t think there’s any better description.
I am humble by recognizing that I have weaknesses and insecurities, and as a consequence, give other people permission to express themselves and see what I can gain from them. They will surprise me with their ingenuity, if I am humble to let them. If I may just be still, and let them. That is leadership.
I am humble because I recognize, like everybody, I am fallen. Hence, I cannot find the things that make me different than others. Thus, I do not look down on other people. I do not think I am any smarter or richer or more fast-thinking than other.
Good leaders see others the way God does- lovely and worthy individuals. It is important to realize that people each have worth and immense abilities, abilities that I may have not have, abilities that can bend the arc of history toward a better, kinder world.
Here is another potency of humility. With humility, a you have the grace to see the best in less-than-perfect people, and that in turn enables the creativity of these people to be sparked and unlocked for the advancement of organizational objectives and goals. I mean they can make you grow beyond your imagination with this of humility.
Even to ordinary man, humility is so vital to his existence that without it, I am pretty sure it is impossible to please God. God is moved by a humble, contrite spirit and with that, He is more than thrilled to forgive all of our sins and set us on the path to eternal blessings. James 4:6 reads, ““God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble …. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted”.
A Leader Has a Plan- Strategy
A strategy is probably the most crucial tool, beyond selflessness and humility that can be had by a leader.
Every quality of a leader that may include vision, humility, smarts, discipline, communication, selflessness, among others is designed to be strategic; they are a combination of resources to win people, enabling a leader to get things done and get results. That’s it. A leader must have a strategy. He must have a plan. He must have a blueprint on how he intends to accomplish goals. Having all of those qualities that our professors teach us including those of Jesus Christ are a starting point of a strategy.
From a business point of view, a strategy is a set of goal-directed actions a firm takes to gain and sustain superior performance relative to competitors. I understand the job of leadership is not a business nor is it a competition. However, a leader, by nature, finds himself in a position where he has faced challenges that involves transformation.