LEADERSHIP: It's PROs AND CONs. A 40 MINUTES READ WITH BIBLICAL REFERENCES, NOT FOR THE WEAK MIND YET I GUESS YOU NEED TO GLANCE THROUGH THIS TIP IF YOU MUST LEAD NOW OR TOMORROW.

PREAMBLE

Let me start by tendering an unreserved apology for keeping you in suspense this while and for my inability to feed your curiosity viz a viz the post which I had promised to compile few days back, about the concept of leadership, using the character of @sirknight, who though in just few days on getting to meet him through reading his posts, has succeeded in not just inspiring me but had as well motivated me to writing this piece which I'm certain is not to extol his character, but rather to x-ray some salient and invaluable lessons one could learn from leadership as a concept and to help us become better leaders.

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Having tendered my apologies, I feel it wouldn't be very abnormal if I should quickly point out few challenge(s) that imped the compilation of this piece. One of such is my laptop-now desktop, whose battery which has totally gone flat became a big thorn. Hence turning my little device from being a Manufacturer specified laptop that could store power for at least an hour after it's disconnected from the power source to being a plug and use desk top. Read my previous post on https://steemit.com/steemchurch/@voclab/building-a-right-relationship-with-god-is-all-that-matters-and-makes-the-difference-when-he-speaks about staying connected or hearing from God; cause my laptop condition I think is a perfect illustration.

Hence, my target for next month is on how I could replace the laptop battery, as well as get an android device for snapping relevant pictures so to attach to my post. As you know such pictures could go a long way to help my interactions more on this platform least the passion and drive for joining this group in the first place be death due to temporal frustration situation such as this. You need to see how I behave when NEPA (National Electric Power Authority) which two years back had been privatized and are called PHCN ( Power Holding Company of Nigeria), interrupts the power supply while I was typing something very important that was perhaps ready to post. No doubt in my country Nigeria, the irony of our power supply is that the power guys have really leaving up to the expectation. Thus, they have in no time failed to make their name a reality by ensuring the HOLD THE POWER FROM US.

I just hope that you have in no way succeeded in diverting your attention nor cause lost of interest because of my long preamble, and I hope that I didn't bore you by sharing my challenges with you? I f I did, I apologize again but If I did not, then I guess its now time to delve into the essence of this article whose focus is on the word LEADERSHIP.

WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?

Many books no doubt have attempted and perhaps had succeeded in the course of defining what the term Leadership is. As such, I am not here to compete in the race (i.e if there be such), of those who defined/defines LEADERSHIP most. However I always like to reference my definitions, illustrations and explanations to ideas and concepts from the Holy Book because it's the best reference material I have so far come across. One of the renowned writers John Maxwell wrote that "Real leadership is being the person whom others will gladly follow". Hence he tried to juxtapose explicitly the traits of leadership in his book because that term leadership has been misconstrued by many to mean the ability to lead others. As such, a person is assumed to be a leader by virtue of being in the first position. This of course is wrong because if leadership was to be measured with this scale, then all the first born in each family would have been leaders. Going by this, I feel that I won't be wrong to posit that this misconception perhaps is one of the contributory factor to poor leadership in our society, because most time, the eldest available person is always considered to be the best candidate fit for a leadership position. This is nothing but a fallacy of hasty generalization or fallacy ad ignoramus.

However, judging from Biblical characters who became great leaders, most of them if not all, became successful leaders not because of their position in family but rather through God's divine positioning. For instance, people like Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, Solomon, Paul etc got commendations in the Bible as great leaders not because the were the first male child in their family. Nonetheless, other character like Christ Jesus, the first fruit of God becomes the bridegroom of the church through divine arrangement. Thus, from the price he paid on the cross, has automatically reconciled us to Himself and as such we (the church) are His bride.

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WHO THEN IS A LEADER?

A leader I was thought years back in school and still uphold that a Leader is a person that leads another person. Nonetheless, this ideology has to some extent misled many. You don't necessary need to to be a pastor or teacher or Governor to lead others. The truth however about a leader according to John Maxwell's LEADERSHIP 101, where he opines that the first person to lead is me, I and myself, is that a leader shouldn't be stagnant. As such, I think that this later view of who a leader is is good and very rational because of a truth, a Leader is not a person who only leads others putting himself in isolation or stagnation. Thus, a person that can be defined or referred to as a true/good leader is one who can lead himself and also lead others. That's why Jesus tried illustrating this through a parable in Luke 6:42 How are you able to say to your brother, 'Brother let that I might cast out the splinter that is in your eye,' yourself not seeing the beam in your eye? Hypocrite! First cast out the beam from your eye, and then you will see clearly to cast out the splinter in the eye of your brother." This, when interpreted means that a leader should be able to first remove the scale from his eyes before attempting to remove the wood in his neighbors". In summary I feel that a leader is anyone who has control of or could manage his emotions, feelings, flaws or weakness first, before trying to do same with others.

CHARACTERISTICS OR ATTRIBUTES OF A GOOD LEADER

When it comes to the aspect of the characteristics and attributes of a good leader, the is is endless. However, for the purpose of this post, I will base my description of who a good leader is and the characteristic trait that such person should possess. Hence the following are the traits of a good leader exemplified in Jesus Christ's life here on earth.
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RESOURCEFULNESS:

A good leader has to be resourceful. Going by Biblical reference, a leader needs to have some sort of resources which others need or perhaps could depend on. Jesus here has shown and proven this because His sacrifice and blood remains the best. That's why the scripture states in Hebrews 12:24 that "You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel". A blind certainly cannot lead another blind man as quoted earlier in Luke Gospel. As such, there must be something unique which a leader should possess and as such would naturally attract others to you.

Now imagine this. Have you ever seen a blind man moving along the street? Yes, many times, you would say, but have you ever sat to consider these things.
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First, a blind man does not move freely without his white stick which guides him to move freely round a given space. Nevertheless, such blind man doesn't solely trust that stick as he would trust a human because in most occasion even with the stick, they still crash into objects or even dash their foot against stones or steps thereby hurt themselves in the process. As such, a blind man needs not just a man with sight to lead him but one who would not lead him to hurt himself again cause their heart is weak. So imagine then if you are a leader whom your followers (presumably blind) trust and depend on to lead them right and at the end you fail to do so. They may not forgive you or trust you anymore to be of help to them. Remember also that we all shall give account of our stewardship before our Maker. Hmmmmm, Leadership is indeed complicated that right now I am so afraid of what my rating of leadership is because I shall give account of the people I led either consciously or unconsciously.
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Secondly do you know that any man who wants to lead that blind man to where such blind man desires to go to, must first of all be a man that knows where the blind man is going. Now imagine if I was a blind man and I asked you to please guide or lead me to my village Ikot Obio Ema in Etim Ekpo village. You certainly may fail to lead me there because you do not know such place. I guess that VISION is paramount in leadership because a leader must have clear vision and eyes to lead others. No doubt some people jokingly say that a man with one eye can be made KING in the land of the blinds. Indeed, you do not need to go round the streets and homes to announce that you are a leader and thus need to lead them, rather you just need to lead yourself with the resources(eyes) you have first. Hence, others would get to hear, see or perhaps feel/think and will be convinced that you have led yourself well, then they can relentlessly trust you to lead them aright. Note that Christ gave an open invitation to all to "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest". Hebrews 11:28. O, what a wonderful invitation by the Lord saviour to the entire human race irrespective of tribe, colour or language. Yeah, it's one big family bound by love unimaginable.

DUPLICABILITY:

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The second characteristic trait which a good leader should posses is what I would choose to term reproductivity and delegation. Jesus told his disciples follow me and I will make you fishers of men. He gave them hope and went ahead to lead them to achieving that hopes/dreams. There is no gain saying that that there are quite a very large number of people who are great leaders in our present society. However, its only but few that have molded others who could take over from them when there are no more ready to lead. Going by this, it is good to note that the success story of any great leader is to reproduce a clone of himself. That is, a good leader to mold or mentor someone whom he could trust to do what he does. Jesus again is my reference because having taken the disciples round Jerusalem, Samaria and Judea preaching so as to get them acquainted with the process, tested their skills and abilities when he appointed about 70 people and sent them out to go and preach. I believe you know the story very well cause I don't wish to bore you with the story. You know, my Bible tells me that they (70) all returned joyfully testifying about things they encountered and the miracles that took place while they were on the mission. Sadly many great leaders in our world today are often time afraid to delegate power or authority to their followers because they fear that such person may betray their trust or perhaps perform (lead) (be a more good leader) better than them. Little wonder you see people go as far as shading blood of innocent persons and doing blood sacrifices just to be in power or leadership position. A good reference is the polity in my dear country NIGERIA.

TAKING THAT BOW AT THE RIGHT TIME:

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The third attribute of a good leader is his ability to leave the stage while the ovation is still loud. There is this popular saying that goes those {retired but not tired} I always bust into smiles garnished with indifference each time I hear this, because my thoughts drive me into dilemma each time I ponder over the applicability of that saying. It's true that the world is a big stage and we all are characters with different roles to play in the drama of LIFE before taking a bow out of the stage. Believe me, to me I think that this is one of the most difficult character trait of a good leader because you need divine help to know

WHEN,

WHERE and

HOW to take that bow.

However, in this post, I will only try to illuminate on why you should take a bow out of the stage is really important for you as a great leader. Its quite simple and straight to the point. Doing so, would afford you the opportunity to be at the background. Thus, there at the background or perhaps among the audience, could help you watch, observe, correct the flaws as well as learn from the other character (your successor). Sadly, most characters do not even know their role(s), talk more of have the ability or the needed resourcefulness for interpreting their role well on stage. Thus, they ignorantly choose to go learn/ know about their assigned role(s) right there on the stage and as such, stay too long on stage than is/was expected of them. What a catastrophe? Relating this to leadership, I think that I have come across personalities in different facets of life, whom I have been convinced, do not only lack leadership skills, but have nothing to do on the stage of LEADERSHIP. Again, few politicians in my country whose name I do not wish to put in black and white, are perfect examples. However Jesus is my good leader model because after his resurrection and before ascension instructed us in the last three verse of the last book of Matthew to "go round the world to preach and make disciples of all nations baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Lo I am with you to the end of time" Wow!!! what an assurance by Christ that he would be with us till the end of time.

Contrary to the lesson shown by Christ, the leaders in our society do not always want to give their subordinate a platform where they could learn to lead or perhaps become better than them. However, when they give or hand over power to the next leader. They are totally unsupportable. In fact, I know that this might sound wired but most of the leaders we have in our society even go to the adding the failure of their successor(s) to their prayer request so that people could see the weakness of their successors so as to win the loyalty of their old followers who quickly throw/apportion blame on the new leader and making reference to the previous leader to be better than the new one. A perfect illustration of this is the story of the children of Israel who suddenly forgot about God many times including the time that Moses went up the mount to get the 10 commandment. Least I should forget, its indeed a two way coin because even the people who succeed these Leaders also try to condemn and bite the very finger that fed them. What a world!!! Indeed "The heart of man is desperately wicked".

Let me summarize this piece by saying that the Apostles were called Christians and we are stilled called so because we are and display Christ-like characteristics. Hence the Scripture states in Gen. that God said "Let us now make man in our own image and after that we were made in His image and likeness. Going by this, I uphold that @Sirknight has thus far proven to be a good leader whose legs has no doubt fit into the three sized shoe characteristic attribute which I have analyzed in this piece. I say so because I felt so super excited while interacting with @Uyobong and @Liltom002 about the birth, growth and development of steemchurch, I got to know that the vision came from this character @sirknight and from his post, I saw that he had appointed someone to keep the @steemchurch going while he concentrates on other facets of his leadership and self development/improvement. On the contrary, if his legs does not perfectly match with my size-3 shoes of leadership, them I'm sure that he wouldn't hurt himself by bending down to tighten the lace of the shoe so it could fit him well. Selah.
I may be wrong you would say, but lets leave everything to time as it would tell who we all truly are. O

I wish to congratulate you for your patience in going through this piece. I just hope that I didn't fall below what you expected from me. Well if I did, then I'm certain that your comments could help me improve on my writing skill and to get better.

Watch out for my next post about @Darlenys, the Incumbent Steemchurch Leader and @Uyobong sc-n leader, on his birthday which is loading sooner. Mind you, it's my earnest which and not a promise. Hence it would be subject to when my system is plugged to a power source.

You become a leader and will remain same till the day you can lead yourself no more. Selah