Take Charge of Your Life and Dreams
Your personal commitment to development of the highest possible level of leadership expertise involves commitment to an arduous plan of work. Personal growth always requires effort. Developing leadership ability is no exception. Some of your goals may be achieved fairly soon and with a relatively small investment of time, money, and effort. The more significant ones, however, may lay a number of years in the future and will require continuing effort and hard work on your part. Everything worth having – including leadership effectiveness – carries a price. But every worthwhile goal also produces rewards, and your career success as a leader is especially rich in benefits.
Your success as a leader gives you the respect and trust of people. As they follow your leadership, you are encouraged to become even more competent and successful. Eventually, their respect and trust for you are shared by other people in the community, and you begin to exert a wider influence that, in turn, gives you new opportunities for growth and service.
Consciousness of your own professional competence is one of the prime rewards of your program of leadership growth. For a person who is goal directed and self-motivated, a sense of personal competence is a function of the highest human need – the need for self-actualization.
Development of your leadership ability enables you to achieve your personal goals. Professional success provides adequate income, freedom to manage your own activities, and the ability to move in any social or professional group that attracts you. Goals that involve your family and home and other areas of your life move into your grasp as you grow professionally.
One of the most exciting rewards of leadership success is the ability it gives you to offer new opportunities to other people. The members of your team become almost like family members to you. You feel a responsibility for them; you enjoy making it possible for them to grow; you rejoice in their successes; you are excited about rewarding their achievement with money, position, and recognition. When you know that you have made a direct contribution to the growth of the people with whom you work, you feel a sense of fulfillment that can be gained in no other way.
Success as a leader gives you the opportunity to be of service to your community. You have the skills to contribute to the leadership and success of various groups to which you belong: civic organizations, professional societies, religious and charitable groups, and governmental services. Your career success provides the recognition of your skill that makes people seek you out and ask for your help. You are thus able to expand your influence and the impact you can make on others. This area of self-actualization adds meaning and purpose to your life.
Growth as a leader and the attendant financial rewards enable you to grow in the enjoyment of giving. We live in a world of abundance, but not all people find themselves in a position to enjoy the potential abundance that is there for them. Your success makes it possible for you to serve those who need some help to gain an education, to find physical and mental health, to prepare for jobs or careers that will make them productive, and to solve problems too great for their resources.
Your joy in sharing personal growth and success with your team members can be extended as you find ways to promote the growth and success of people in your immediate community, in your country, and throughout the world.
The Leadership Journey
What you accomplish as a leader is completely up to you. William Jennings Bryan said, “Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” Set a schedule for working regularly on your goals. Identify study materials and plan how you will use them. Monitor your progress toward the goals you have set. Your plan for the future can be as exciting as you make it. Take charge of your life and design the future of your dreams. In the inspirational words of Paul J. Meyer:
“Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass.”
LMI JOURNAL, VOLUME IV, NUMBER 11 Leadership Management® InstituteReprinted with permission === Strategic Essentials is a Managing Partner for Leadership Management® International, Inc.
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