MADIBA: Who "were" You To Yourself??

Hmmm...where do we start from?

I wonder how wild the thoughts in his head always run;
how in slavery and chains, he became familiar with the sun;
having rugged faith that someday things will change.

I wonder how he kept going on even when he lost a son
At what point did he take this fight personal?
At what point in this struggle was his whole life defined?
He saw a future, but the obstacles were much!

I can imagine that there would be points when those closest to him will BEG him to quit;
But He kept at it...
27 years in Prison for believing in equality?

He was a LIVING Martyr;
who died the day he was first cheated;
who never enjoyed his youth...no he didn't
He fought for generations he will never meet;
He inspired people he will never know;
He loved as Christ loves
He was an example of love...

But really, I'm not concerned about that!!!
I'm more concerned about WHO HE WAS WHEN HE WAS ALONE
Those cold nights when no one was there to comfort him,
I'm more concerned about the man who got heart-broken when he should've found comfort;
I wonder what runs through his mind each time he sees people celebrate him

A MAN CREATED NOT TO ENJOY HIS YOUTH!
They say your name is a reflection of who you are;
He was named "Rolihlahla" - A trouble Maker
before his teachers changed his name to "Nelson"...hmmm
And he came to terms with this name.

An embodiment of tenacity and wahala (trouble maker)
from a convicted "terrorist" to a CELEBRATED REVOLUTIONARY;
You lived an amazing life!!!
Sleep like a baby in God's arms, ne'er to awake in this world;
Go and finally enjoy the rest you deserve!!

Understanding Circumstances

It has been proven time and again that the whole essence of what life means to each individual lies in the mirror we see the world through, and honestly the mirror is subjective. What mostly determines what the mirror is ranges from our experiences, to our environment, circle of friends, connections, and the people around- such that it is impossible to see beyond your understanding and knowledge (except you learn to stretch yourself) at a particular point. As a matter of fact, you level of exposure goes a long way in helping you interpret the situations and happenings of life. I'm not completely ruling out the option of higher understanding, but the fact remains that your reactions and interpretations to situations is a function of all you have ever known; consciously or subconsciously - nothing more!

Now, leadership requires a great deal of functional perspectives that goes on to define your leadership capacity and eventually your credibility when it comes to having good judgements and steering people in the right course just so everyone can be happy and your common goals can be achieved. It is this "functional Perspective (as I like to call it) that gives you an edge in life generally, and developing it isn't a hard task at all...it just takes hard work.

Here are a few things I feel would help in broadening your horizon;
1) See things from other people's perspective. Try as much as possible to understand (or at least have a knowledge of) the person's temperament, state of mind, and circumstance. You're not a Ginnie, I know, but most times, having a good knowledge about the person/people you're dealing with works to your advantage.
2)Define Yourself. You will need to have a clear understanding of you and also be able to define and draw a definite boundary between your Ego and Principles. I believe that whatever infringes on your EGO should be allowed (as it makes you "die to self") whilst whatever infringes on your PRINCIPLES should be frowned upon (but be careful to know that your principles are not borne out of your EGO.
3) Welcome other people's opinion on a matter. You can't know it all, neither can you have all the answers you need per time; most times, it's life becomes easier when you heed "GOOD" counsels from "Respected, trusted and reputable" friends (or mentors, as the case may be).
4) Your State of Mind also matters when it comes to assessing situations. You need to learn to look at things from a perspective of someone who isn't involved in the matter at all, as this will help clarify things for you.

Life's Beauty

I have had the cause to see people grow angry about the outcomes and turns that their life is taking, and I dare say that i know how frustrating it could be. you see people clamoring about the inability of people to follow through on their words of the inability of those closest to them to be sensitive enough to understand the times and seasons of life that they are in, but the truth is everyone is looking for a sense of balance everywhere - the problem is just how they are going about it. We need to get to a point where we realize that the beauty of life is so much dependent on how we see life - our perspective towards everything that happens around us, and that requires a high level of leadership! the best leaders are those who have over time, understood that it's only in seeing positivity in every situation that one can access life from a balanced point of view and get the best out of every situation. once we begin to have this posture towards life and alter our paradigm, we will discover that life is truly beautiful, and we'll learn to be a shoulder for someone else...

One of the major factors that determines a leader's level of influence is loyalty. Loyalty to a cause goes a long way in the determination and depiction of seriousness and wholeness n a leader. I just sat down and started revising and meditating about life, and I discovered that the bulk of people who has ever made great impact in life are those who are very loyal to their cause.

I came to discover that amongst the various definition of loyalty, dying to self and poeasure keeps poping up in me. A loyal soldier puts his country first before pleasure, a loyal father considers hnis children before himself; a loyal husband denies himself the pleasure from strange women... Likewise a loyal leader! He denies himself the pleasures he is due, just so the cause he believes in can continue.

In other words, loyalty is all about sacrificing yourself for the sake of what you believe in. It is this commitment that people see in you that then makes them want to keep following you. An act of commitment and loyalty to a cause a way of steering the hearts of the people who work with you towards the direction of positivity.

There is a whole lot to talk on when it comes to the issue of loyalty. The truth is that no organization can survive the turmoils and test of time if the bulk of Tyne staffs are disloyal people. In this series "loyalty and you" I'll be discussing in depth issues on loyalty.

Enjoy!! Q

IMAGINATION - A leader's guide to newness

It is impossible to over stress the fact that in leadership, people follow the extra in your ordinary. People tend to keep following you as long as there is always something new you have to offer, once you decide to become obsolete and worn out, people will begin to drift away from you and bit by bit, you begin to lose it as a leader. You are failing! (There’s no better way to express it)
One of the greatest tools at the disposal of every man (leaders and followers alike) is the ability to widen your perspective with your mind by accessing your imagination skills. I believe Imagination is simply “painting in your mind a desired future/outcome”. It is a skill that is available in everyone. If you can try to flash back on your early years, you will discover that you made a great demand on this particular skill set regularly, but it’s interesting to note that as you are growing older, you begin to lose track of this skill, and believe more in the things that are happening around you, thereby being engulfed about the challenges and cares of this world.
If only leaders can revisit this skill set and learn to use it again!
When a leader learns to use his imaginative skill, he will discover that new strategies will be birthed and greatness achieved. What imagination does is that it opens you up to a realm of possibilities and if you care enough to hang in for minutes (maybe hours) you will begin to see ways by which you can attain what you are conceiving. Once you can linger on these thoughts for some days (or months, years), your whole consciousness will be about birthing what only you have been seeing.
So the cycle is: Imagination – thoughts – ideas – implementation.
As a leader, you constantly need to see things other people cannot see. You need to always be ahead the people you lead. Whilst you cannot afford to be too far away from them, you also need to be ahead of them in thoughts, because leadership is all about making people see what only you can see, communicating the vision to them, and helping them attain a level of security about your communicated picture. But there’s no way you can make them see it if the picture is not real in you. It’s called ‘creative thinking’

LEADITUDE (continuation)

If you choose to take an intensive study on the leadership greats that has ever lived – people like Helen Keller, Mother Teresa, Princess Diana – you will discover that this people have a lot of things in common, which acts as a determinant for their effectiveness in leadership. These people were able to affect millions of lives, pull a huge crowd in a distinctive way and create landmarks in our world because of one thing – Attitude. I’ve always been a firm believer of the fact that leadership is all about solving people’s problems just so they can solve yours in return; and this is what all these great men and women were all about.
This being established, I dare say that it is impossible to be a great leader if you are not touching lives (as this is what really attracts people to you in the first place). Some of the leaditudes to develop on the quest to becoming a great leader are:
1. Selflessness:- there is no better way to define this than saying you have to die to self. A leader on the path to greatness has to learn to put other people’s joy and goals before his own. While this may be very hard to do, it takes a whole lot of discipline to disciple people, and make them follow you. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your joy and convenience for the sake of the people you lead; this takes a whole lot of discipline.
2. Emotional mastery: I’m yet to see a great leader that lacks emotional stability. A leader must be ready to take insults, mess, and failures and in the midst of it all, learn to be strong despite the odds. The reason why these stuffs happen is because as a leader, you are the only one that understands what is really in your head. The best you can do is to communicate a fraction of it to you people. Therefore, when everything doesn’t look like what you’ve painted to them, some of your people won’t mind scolding you and talking you down, even some will leave you and if you are not strong enough, you will lose your essence and sanity, eventually, your integrity and leadership. A real leader must always be emotionally sound as it also helps you make great decisions.
3. Long term thinking: People follow leaders because of the extra in their ordinary. A leader must always have a knack for seeing things before they happen. This attribute will help him navigate storms better and make people respect him for that.

LEADITUDE: Why is it so Important?

One funny truth about leadership is the fact that you can only lead people as far as you have gone in life, that’s why I believe leadership to be an attitude. I’ve come across people who feel they can just stumble on leadership and have a lovely time in it, but the reality is that it takes time for a person to attain a stage when he can call himself a true leader. Leadership is such that it improves with the passage of time and consistency, so much so that it outlives your very existence, and resonates through the time-space quantinum into the very essence of generations yet to follow your principles and provide guidelines for them to live by.
A real leader’s journey starts from the moment he is able to guide himself through life by setting some standards he will adhere to, and discipline himself a great deal. This is where attitude comes in. in my previous post, I described attitude as a person’s disposition, action and reaction to the circumstances of life. And if you plan to successfully lead people, you have to have something extra about your ordinary that will make people want to follow you. Without this trait, people will ignore you, or if you’re already leading a group of people, once they catch up with you, the leave you at the same spot and go their own way. Therefore, there’s the need to constantly upgrade you intellectual capital and attitude.
FACTS ABOUT LEADITUDE
 A leader is responsible for his/her attitude. You are totally responsible for the way you react or respond to life and people. I believe that there is always a time-line between action-reaction complex in which you can decide on what to do.
 A leader’s attitude does not run on automatic. The fact that you attained a particular level does not mean you can be there permanently. If there’s any indication, it’s only a cry for you to keep improving, as you may deteriorate if you remain at the same level for too long.
 It’s not what happens to you that matters but what happens in you… you have complete control over your reactions.
 The leader’s attitude is the determinant of the attitude of those around him. I believe that the most important things in life are caught, not taught.
LEADITUDES TO DEVELOP
I will only discuss two of the attitudes in this write up,( I’ll save the rest for my next blog article)and they are:
1. Service: leadership is such that you continually have to serve the people who you lead. In my previous article, I wrote that leadership is all about solving the problems of a hundred people who will just solve one of yours. Service in leadership is also about contributing to the success and progress of anything you are involved in, and servitude has to be with excitement and enthusiasm.
2. Positivity: at times when all things are down and going haywire, it is the leader’s responsibility to constantly remain positive. The truth about the people you lead is that they have a heightened sense of sporting when things are going wrong and fear In a leader. When this happens, they begin to migrate away from you and that spells the beginning of downfall. Therefore, you cannot afford to be down. You have to constantly encourage them and make them see the positives in what you are doing as this will prove to be a source of strength for them to go on