The Leadership Principle of Influence (part 1 or 2)

The true measure of leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. If you don’t have influence, you will never be able to lead others. Great examples are Princess Diana and Mother Theresa – neither had any real authority, but both exercised an incredible amount of influence. Colin Powell once said, “You will have achieved excellence as a leader when people will follow you anywhere, even if only out of curiosity.” People have many misconceptions about leadership. When they hear that someone has an impressive title of an assigned leadership position, they assume that he is a leader. Sometimes that’s true. But titles don’t have much value when it comes to truly leading. True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that can’t be mandated – it must be earned. The only thing a title can buy is a little time – either to increase your level of influence with others or to erase it. Here are five common myths about leadership: 1. The Management Myth: A widespread misunderstanding is that leadership and management are one and the same. Up until a few years ago, books that claimed to be on leadership were often really about management. The main difference between the two is that leadership is about influencing people to follow, while management focuses on maintaining systems and processes. Consequently, a great way to test whether a person can lead rather than manage is to ask him to create positive change. Managers can maintain direction, but changing it is difficult for them. To move people in a new direction, you need influence. Michael Hammer, the father of Reengineering (the science of fast, radical business change) frequently said, “the hard stuff is the soft stuff”. He was referring to the fact that successful change is always accomplished by influencing people. 2. The Entrepreneur Myth: Frequently, people assume that all salespeople and entrepreneurs are leaders. But that’s often not the case. Just because someone is buying what they are selling, does not make them leaders – people are not really following them. At best, salespeople and entrepreneurs may be able to persuade someone for the moment, but they hold no long-term real influence over their customers. This is often evidenced by how many of these individuals go out of the business as soon as there is a shift in the market. To be continued... Need to improve your ability to positively influence others? Truth@Life can help you, regardless of your location. Call 248-396-6255 or email me at curtis.songer@gmail.com for a free consultation. If you receive value from these blogs, please consider donating to keep this blog site up and running. This ministry cannot continue without the generous donations of its readers. Just click on the "Donate" button in the upper right. For more info on help I can provide check out http://truthatlife.com/ or email me directly at curtis.songer@gmail.com