Self-Discipline and Leadership:
By starting with the quote: “Nothing is more harmful to the service than the neglect of discipline; for it is discipline more than members that gives one army superiority over another”.
Leadership and self-discipline go hand in hand,it is not possible to imagine an effective leader who lacks self discipline, will power, self control,and self mastery. The overarching characteristics of a leader is that he is in complete control of himself and of every situation. There has seldom been a time in history when leaders were so needed and so much in demand as TODAY.
We need leaders at every level of sociey, both in the profit and non-profit sectors. We need leaders in our families, businesses,places of worship, community organizations,and, especially, POLITICS. We need men and women who take their responsibilities seriously and are willing to step forward to take command of the situation.
Fortunately, leadership is learnable. Leaders are developed- usually self developed-over time through hard work, experience, and training. Though,I am not unmindful that,there may be natural-born leaders,but there are so few of them,that they make no difference in the great scheme of things.
My dear people in leadership position- now in future, please be reminded that the role of the leader is to take responsibility for results. The primary reason that people are promoted into increasingly higher levels of leadership is that they demonstrate the ability to get the required results at each level.
The ongoing question of the leader is always, What results are expected of me?clarity is essential.
Note: The main reason that some people are not promoted into greater leadership position- or perhaps they are even fired- is because of Failure to execute. They do not do the most important jobs expected of them,nor so they get the results demanded of them.
The first quality of leadership is the quality of VISION. Anyone that doesn’t have the ability to project forward into the future and develop a clear picture of where they want their organizations to go with the ability to share this vision with others and gain others’ commitment to make the vision a reality has no business in leadership position.
Truth be told, you become a leader when you accept responsibility for results. You become a leader when you begin to think, act, and talk like a leader. You become a leader when you develop a vision for yourself and for your company, your life,or your area of responsibility.
For instance,a military leader has a vision of victory, from which he never deviates. A business leader has a vision of success for the business based on excellent performance, and for the sake of this audience,a political leader is expected to lead his party to electoral victory,to which he is completely committed.
Hon. Adeniyi Abiodun Adeoti writes from Ibadan.