My 10 Biggest Mistakes as a Young Leader

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My ability to learn from even the littlest things in my life has become one of my greatest assets. Here are some things I've learned from retrospect on my 4 years in the university where I served on several platforms as a student leader. Read, learn, practice and share these lessons:

10 Leadership Lessons from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (The Movie)

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1. The greatest leaders in the world did not just lead people. They led movements, revolutions and ideologies.
2. Madiba was a selfless leader.
3. Madiba was courageous. He was courageous enough to stand by his vision for South Africa. He was courageous enough to stand for peace when the people demanded war.
4. Madiba was confident in the ideology he stood for: the ideology of freedom for his people.
5. The road to greatness is never ending and always lonely.

The Penalty of Leadership

I saw this in a textbook I read recently, Introduction to Mass Communication by Stanley J. Baran and I thought it’d be nice to share with you. It’s a 1915 Cadillac Motor Car Company Image Advert.

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be merely mediocre, he will be severely left alone- if he achieves a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues wagging.

Insanely Different: Life Lessons from Steve Jobs

Be different. Don’t try to be better. Be different. These were the words that caught my attention most from the movie: Jobs. The movie produced as a tribute to the departed Steven Paul Jobs who was the CEO and Co-Founder of Apple Computers Inc. As I watched the movie I learned a lot as I have always strived to do from every good movie I see. Here are some of the lessons I have learned from Steve Jobs:

1. Whatever your dream is, as long as you believe in it and as long as you have passion, you can achieve it regardless of the opposition you face.

Leadership Development Series Part2: LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING

One of the outstanding setbacks any leader can have is the assumption of him having adequate knowledge and so does not necessarily need to know more. This will be his demise. A leader must be able to learn from every experience at every point in time, from everyone whether superior or inferior, past and present mistakes which led to the downfall of leaders who preceded him and even the mistake he makes. It will be foolishness for a leader to repeat the same mistakes which others have made. Also, you can learn from the success stories of other leaders.

WHAT MAKES AN EXCELLENT LEADER

There have been so many books teaching people leadership and I don’t criticize those books, I actually have gained enormously from them, but the truth is, few of these books will teach you what only experience can. In my few years in the university, I’ve had the opportunity to serve as a leader and I have watched, in genuine surprise, at how I have learned a lot from the responsibilities I have had. These are things that only experience can teach you. These are things that you won’t learn in any textbook. These are the things that make for excellent leadership.

-          A leader is defined by the competence of his followers. Trust me, if your followers are not competent enough, they’ll end up dragging you back and the progress of your group will be hindered. As a leader, you must look out for the total development of your followers because, eventually, their outcome will determine your success or failure.

Leadership Development Series Part 1: 10 Challenges Leaders Face

To begin with, in my own experience on leadership development, I have hardly ever come across any book that talks about the challenges leaders face. In my opinion, the first step to developing leadership ability is to know the challenges that leaders ahead of us face almost daily. These challenges that leaders face vary from one leader to another. Some leaders have even faced all these challenges before but have been able to learn from them while some did not deal with these challenges well and it has been their downfall. Thus, it is left to you reading this to decide whether or not you will learn from these challenges and become a better leader than you currently are.

The challenges listed below are not exhaustive and they are based on my own study and experience therefore there may be others out here but these ones can serve as a skeletal frame for the ones not mentioned. 

1.  Pride. This is obviously one of the biggest challenges leaders face. Pride can cause so many problems. Pride is different from confidence. Pride is thinking about yourself higher than you actually are. Pride in leaders usually stems from the root of insecurity. It will also affect your relationship with your followers. 

Leadership Development Series...

 Please watch out for the Leadership Development Series that commences tomorrow 14th of September, 2013. I'll be sharing some practicable leadership truths and ideas with you guys. I hope you'll all be able to learn a lot. It' different from what the textbook leadership stuff give us. It's more relatable 'cos it's from personal experience.