“Leadership is action, not position” – Donald H McGannon
This happens to be one of my favourite quotes on leadership. Not just because it is the life truth of any leader but also that it has guided me in every position of leadership I have occupied and still occupy. It is possible to pun that the leader is the position, while leadership are the acts that must come with that position. I have served in several leadership positions and at various capacities; from being at the very top of the helm of affairs, to leading just a few people and accounting to some Ogas at the top and most of all, to leading one important person – myself.
I have learnt quite a number of lessons as a leader and in truth; a lot of these lessons were learnt from the errors, the mistakes and the failures from my output as a leader.
I will want to share with you from these lessons learnt from my experiences and observations from leadership. At least I am very sure, if you have served people in a position of leadership you would surely be able to relate to my learning.
THE POSITION
If you have read through each word from the overture of this piece, you would have noticed that the word “position” occurred a bunch of times. Position is the first stage in leadership. It is the first point that puts you in the object to lead. But nonetheless, you must never be carried away by the post you occupy. It is just a title. And is not the determinant of your success but the platform for achieving your visions.
When I first got my appointment as a Nokia Brand Ambassador, I was more enthralled by the glamour of this appointment than I was conscious of the incidental tasks and duties that came with the role. One of my duties was that I had to send in weekly reports of promos I had conducted, contacts I had made, new users and a host of several weekly requirements. It was two months after my campaign started that the reality dawned on me, that I was not just appointed an Ambassador for the show, but was given the job to pull a crowd of new users to Nokia products and the only way I could prove I had done anything was by submitting my weekly and monthly reports. Unfortunately, I was only able to submit reports for three weeks throughout a six month campaign – an outright failure, caused by the fact that I had chosen to romanticize the title of the appointment and not to focus on the reality of the demands the appointment had come with.
DEFINE YOUR REALITIES
That immediate moment that one comes into the shoes of leadership is that moment when one is required to sit back and take a pause – a moment to understand the new task ahead and define the goals and actions that must follow to see that these goals are achieved. This is the moment where a leader defines his realities. It is that moment where a leader writes out the script for his role play and that of his team.
Defining realities do not just stop at setting goals; it also encompasses identifying your weaknesses, your strengths, your advantages, your required line of steps, your possible challenges and ultimately what you hope to accomplish at the end. This is more or less having an all-out vision.
LEADERSHIP IS ACTION, NOT POSITION
Like I said in my prologue, this statement happens to be my favorite quote on leadership. The least enthralling but most defining part of being a leader are the acts he must do to fulfill his set visions. We can set dreams, we can design amazing structures, we can draw up creative plans, we can think up the best of new ideas; but where we put no action to kick-start the transformation of these blueprints into materiality, then we have in summary, put to waste God’s gift of creativity, imagination and in actuality, leadership.
I would want to be careful on putting the entirety of focus on just taking action. Action in leadership is not just doing something or anything. Action in leadership is the doing of the requisite to accomplish set goals guided on reason and good judgment.
THE TEAM
At a leadership talk series where I was privileged to be one of the guest panelists, a student asked me how I had successfully managed being a student, a Magazine Editor-in-Chief, a TV producer and director, an Ambassador with Google and a Future Project manager. The audience would probably have surmised that some form of diablerie was involved. But I simply answered, “I have a team, and we get all the tasks required for each job done together”. Yes, and that is the one secret of achievers. As a leader you must have your standing army. A team that can execute the plans you set out. But trust me, a random team would just likewise produce random results. Except a team is guided accordingly to the leaders tune of vision and goals, there would be no results from that team. Impartation of guidance can only be done best by the team leader – hardly ever, are there members who share a common goal and vision of their leader without being betaught.
Twitter: @JohannesMathews
Email: johannes@lolmediaent.com
What do you think?