To lead better, you need the leadership toolkit. The toolkit is a checklist for effective leadership. According to Michael Genovese: “Leaders will need stamina, intelligence, optimism, creativity, honesty and wisdom. Courage; a sense of humour; empathy; a healthy sense of self-esteem; compassion; caring; a thick skin and a rugged stamina; a power sense; a knowledge of self, the world, and the organisation; a sense of history; the ability to communicate and persuade; political and managerial skills; the ability to judge others and appropriately delegate responsibility; vision; quick thinking; self-confidence, but not arrogance; the ability to put team members together and make them work in concert; and emotional intelligence.”

To lead better, you should develop leadership capacity. Myles Munroe said: “Leadership is both an art and a science: it is innate, yet learned; it is inherent, yet must be developed.” There is leadership potential in every person, but very few individuals realise that this latent ability lie in them and give it an expression.

The essence of leadership is to exercise influence. You are either leave people better or worse than you met them. The great commission mandate given to the church by Christ is to, “go and make disciples of all nations” (See Matthew 28:19–20). This is a direct mandate to provide leadership for nations, instructing them to live according to the principles of the kingdom of God. When God created man, He created him to have dominion and that is to lead (Genesis 1:26-28). God created man to rule or to have dominion over the earth. There is a leader in everyone, waiting to be released. Leaders are those who make things to happen. The leader is different from the manager because the manager administers; the leader innovates. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it. Leaders can be made and that is why many organisations spend money on development training of their staff. The value of this leadership development training is to build both human capital (individual competencies) and social capital (relational competencies).

Social capital is critical for building and maintaining trust. Leaders are courageous. To change status quo in any place, you need courage to lead the desired change. A leader is confident about his or her ability to make a difference. Leaders who are willing to confront status quo are more likely to elicit cooperation from others, and this cooperation is enhanced by the trust the leader has built.
A leader with humility is also more likely to build trust with others.

Leadership is about service. Myles Munroe said that the shortest distance to leadership is service. True leadership is not measured by how many people serve you, but by how many people you serve. The greater your service, the greater your value to others, and the greater your leadership.

Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration, generated by a passion, motivated by a vision, birthed from a conviction, produced by a purpose. Leadership is the ability to direct others by influence. It may take the form of the influence of one friend on another, one spouse on another, a parent on a child, a teacher on students, a pastor on a congregation, a supervisor on employees, a community leader on volunteers, and so on. Leadership is measured by the degree to which one can influence others. Leadership is what people give to you after you have influenced them by your passion to the point where you have inspired them.

John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
• Today’s nugget: Leadership is measured by impact
Phone Contact: 07032361509. E-mail: [email protected]. Joel Ejiofor, business coach and strategist