Leaders Lead

John Kotter, a distinguished leadership author and expert, has defined leadership as

“a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.”

Leadership has become a buzzword for many organizations these days because there are so many changing complexities in our world that it is a much desired skill in the work force.

But can we call it a skill?

Is leadership something that people are born with, or is it something that people can gain with experience?

Most experts believe that it’s a combination of both. John Maxwell simply calls leadership “influence, nothing more and nothing less”.

So if leaders are influencers who define what the future looks like, how does one become…well, that?

There is in an insanely great story I want to tell you.

It’s about a two brothers who decided they wanted to be the first inventors to man an aircraft. These two brothers didn’t have experience in building aircraft, because of course, no one really had experience at doing this at the time. In fact they were simple bike shop owners who had a vision for what they thought flight should look like. As you could probably tell by now the two brothers I am referring to are the Wright brothers, and on December 17th, 1903 The Wright brothers would forever go down as the first people in human history to man an aircraft.

Here is another.

It’s about a southern baptist preacher who envisioned a world where the color of someone’s skin didn’t matter, and that love, not hate wins in the end. He went all through out the United States sharing his dream with others, and even spent time in jail because of this vision of the world he had. In 1964 he saw the short term fruit of his labor with the Civil Rights Act, and people to this day are still rallying to this cause of racial reconciliation. Again, you might have already guessed it, but this man was Martin Luther King Jr.

I tell you these two stories because these people show us again and again what it means to be a leader, and how to become one.

One becomes a leader when they a have a vision so vivid that they are compelled to act on it. They are so sure that it will push the human race forward that they would even risk their lives for it.

Leaders become leaders when they decide to lead.

Leaders become leaders when their vision becomes action.

If you only have vision and no action then you can only call yourself a dreamer.

The Wright brothers would only be dreamers if they had never taken the first steps to build an aircraft.

Martin Luther King Jr. would only be a dreamer if his dreams never compelled him and others to action.

Leaders lead when they decide that dreamers need someone to follow. Is there a group of people around you that have the same dreams as you? Lead them. Start a movement. Create action.

Change

the

world.