The Mufasa Leadership Perspective
How to lead your tribe the way Mufasa led Pride Rock
Bold, wise, & encouraging; Mufasa is the ultimate leader of leaders.
We all remember the Disney movie, The Lion King, and one of its main integral characters Mufasa, a.k.a Simba’s dad. For those of you who don’t remember, Mufasa was the King of Pride Rock who was killed by his brother in an attempt to save his son from a stampede of wild animals. Throughout his life in the movie, and even after death, he remained the chief influencer of his kingdom. His reign throughout the movie gave us a glimpse at how a true leader carries themselves through adverse situations while remaining courageous, wise, and full of integrity.
After watching the film recently I paid very close attention to Mufasa’s leadership methods and how he defined this role in his and in his son’s life. As I was watching the movie, I began to see parallels in his character that coincided with many other influential leaders of our time.
Mufasa, like many other great leaders, displays several traits clearly identified by the The Trait Approach, which studies the integral patterns of personal characteristics of effective leaders. His wisdom, integrity, self confidence, and aspirational motivation are all qualities that make up, what people call, transformational leadership (Northouse, 2001)
According to Northouse, Leaders hold specific qualities; high values, empowerment, integrity, inspiration, cooperation, and contribution to initiate change. As the film progresses you begin to see Mufasa’s influence on his son and how, even after death, his presence encourages Simba to return to Pride Rock to take his place in “the circle of life”. Mufasa effectively inspires and empowers Simba to self identify his potential and the responsibilities of his position as rightful King.
This motivation to lead others is an inherent gift that many influential leaders share in common with each other. They have an intense desire to uplift and encourage others to become successful leaders as well, believing that a rising tide lifts all other boats.
So how can you apply the Mufasa Perspective toward your life and business?
The following are the 7 core traits that effective leaders practice.
1.Drive / Determination: Are you playing full out or are you minimizing your efforts because of fear and a “lack of” mindset? Having the courage and endurance to continue striving for excellence is a key factor to becoming a successful leader. Always stretching yourself to higher new uncharted territories because you realize that playing small doesn't serve you is an important mindset to carry. Minimizing your internal light because of fear of what others might say or fear of the fact that you've never asked for that level of standards from yourself keeps you from realizing your true potential.
In order to beat this mindset and achieve your greatest potential, do your best to feed your mind and spirit with positive reaffirming thoughts. Make sure you are surrounding yourself with encouraging people, spiritual leaders, and a great support group of friends / family who can keep your mind right once you’re going down this journey.
2. Intelligence: An extremely important factor in getting people to believe in your guidance is if you know what you’re talking about. Being an educated person doesn't necessarily mean that you went to college, it means you are curious and are always seeking knowledge that excites you. Trust me when I say, during college I met many students who never touched a book outside of the mandatory reading assignments and who could care less about their chosen major. Yet, on the flip side I met many student who, like myself, read 2–3 books a quarter outside of class’s assigned reading and became involved in experiential learning activities because they wanted to be experts in their fields.
3. Motivation: Right around the Summer of 2012 I felt that there was some unknown force that was constantly nudging at me, causing me personal discomfort with the state of my life trajectory at that point. I had just recently gotten out of a successful business that I built because it was causing me too much emotional pain and felt like there was something more that I needed from my life. Intuitively, I knew back then that I wanted to lead others toward something special but I couldn't articulate this feeling in anyway to myself that would give me the kind of clarity to move forward towards some direction. In fact, it wasn't until I sat down and wrote out on a piece of paper everything that I had been feeling and thinking, that a glimpse of what would later become my personal mission statement suddenly emerged.
“To Inspire & Empower the Entrepreneurial Spirit; One Person, One Business, One Community at a Time.”
I didn't know it at the time, but this newfound personal mission statement would later be the guiding motivational force behind every single decision I made. Even to this day, everytime I read it or say it outloud it bubbles up feelings of great pride and responsibility and has been the main reason why I feel more engaged and in love with my life than anytime before. In fact I know it’s because of this clarity that people put their trust in me to lead projects, companies, and initiatives.
What do you think is your personal mission statement? Do you think that if you knew, you would have more clarity about your purpose in the world? Would having a clear personal mission statement help you become a better leader? Here’s a link to help you define your personal “Why”
4. Integrity: In order to be a true leader you must be able to convey trust amongst your colleagues. When people know that what you say is as good as guaranteed, then everything you say thereafter will be taken as truth. I must say that walking your talk is not the most easiest of things to do, but if you want to start leading others I would suggest being careful what you say out loud unless you plan on executing on that promise 100% of the time. Start paying more attention to what you say to people, you’d be surprised how many promises we make on a daily basis that we often times never fulfill. Each one of those empty promises chips away at your integrity in the eyes of those who trust you and before you know it, your credibility can become tarnished.
5. Self Confidence: This is a big one. A person once told me that if you don’t believe in yourself, then how do you expect others to believe in you? This is a very wise truism because, as I mentioned before, integrity with oneself is the same as conveying integrity with others. Now, fixing your self confidence is not going to happen overnight, and I’m the first to tell you that I still have moments of self doubt. Although what works for me in those moments is a trick I learned from a mentor of mine called Self-Parenting. This methodology has helped tremendously battle that inner scared child inside of me that worries “what if I screw all this up”. By soothing this inner child with positive and supportive good parent messages you begin to eliminate those feelings of fear / doubt and within time you begin to use the method less. Trust me, I thought it was kooky at first too but I very quickly realized that it worked wonders for my self confidence.
6. Cognitive ability: Exercising good judgment is a trait that is needed when making quick decisions that will eventually lead toward your victory or defeat. My suggestion for how you can start to work on this trait is by trusting your intuition more often than not. Its funny, but as a western society we’re taught to use our intuition less and less and rely more so on our intellectual ability to solve problems. Now, as true as this is, I don’t think its 100% accurate, I truly believe that using both aspects make for the most effective decision maker. When researching leadership for another project I was working on the one common thread I found amongst all effective leaders was their ability to “trust their gut”. Most of these people knew within 2 min whether something was the right opportunity for them or not based on that feeling they get telling them this felt right or not. Now, I’m not saying just follow your gut, but in order to be effective you have to use your intelligence in conjunction with your emotional intelligence.
7. Industry Knowledge: This touches on the same subject I mentioned before. In order for you to lead others, you must know what you’re talking about. Having a deep thirst for knowledge of your industry is the only way you will be able to gain anyones trust in you as their mentor, guider,or leader.
I hope this article has helped you become a clearer on what traits are needed in order to become a better Mufasa-like leader in your community, your business, and within your family. If you’d like to connect with me further you can always hit me up on twitter, facebook, or follow my curated list of articles on medium here.
