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One of the things that I want us to understand as leaders is that leading anything is not an easy task. I believe by now we must have realized that one of the hardest tasks anywhere in the world, is the task of leadership. And it doesn’t matter whether you are leading an organization, whether you are leading a family, or whether you are even leading yourself, one of the hardest tasks anywhere in the world, is the task of leadership. And it takes some level of grit, it takes some level of courage and vision to be able to lead a successful venture anywhere in the world.
Listen to Podcast: How to Lead with Courage and Vision
Many times, the question we often ask ourselves as leader is: “Who am I? or what am I capable of?” These are the questions that we often ask ourselves when we are faced with the responsibility or the task of leadership. Who am I? What am I capable of? Can I even make this vision and this goal a reality? Now, we are not the only ones asking ourselves this question. I remember very vividly, the very first thing Moses threw at God, when He spoke to him about his leadership assignment was, who am I? If you read Exodus, chapter 3 from verse 11-12, the Bible says:
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
Many times, God looks beyond our incapacitation as sends us on the same assignment and task that we most dread, and afraid to embark upon as leaders. You see, Moses must have assumed something that with all the excuses that he tabled before God, God was going to excuse him from his leadership assignment. But Moses was not excused. Moses was rather helped of God in order for him to carry out the said assignment. Now there is another leader that also had some doubts about his capabilities and his name was Gideon. If you read the book of Judges chapter 6 from verse 11-16, the Bible says:
“Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” 13 Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” 14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?” 15 So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16 And the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”
Now one of the things I want us to realize in this place is that Gideon didn’t see himself as someone who could lead anything, not to talk of leading a nation like Israel. He also would have loved that God bypassed him and go for someone else. But Gideon didn’t know that all he lacked was courage and a vision, and that he can actually do the job and do it well. The reason why we fail as leaders to launch into the deep of our leadership assignment is simply because we lack courage. We don’t want to fail. We don’t want to be abused. We don’t want our followers to see us as a weakling. We don’t want our nation to tag us as failure. And so, we remain on the spot, afraid to take those bold steps towards fulfilling our leadership destiny.
The truth of the matter is, we need courage to lead effectively as leaders. Even if we have a good vision, and we have seen the future we are envisaging for our organization and for our team ahead of us, if we don’t summon courage to pursue the vision we have seen, it would at best remain a figment of our imaginations. So as leaders, one very thing that we cannot do without in our leadership assignment is courage. Now look at the way I defined courage for us: Courage is that motivating factor that helps us to take giant steps towards the fulfillment of our vision as leaders, even when the indices don’t seem favourable. That is what courage is in leadership. It is that motivating factor that gingers us, that helps us to take giant steps towards the fulfillment of the vision that God has given to us as leaders, even when the indices, the factors around, seem not to be favouring that giant step.
As a matter of fact, the first thing every leader need to getting anything worthwhile done is courage. The very first thing we need as leaders to get anything done in our leadership assignment, you will be surprised is not money, you will be surprised is not people. It is simply courage. Now, how do I know this? If you read 1 Samuel 17, verse 32-33, the Bible says: “Then David said to Saul, let no man’s heart failed because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David “you are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are a youth and he a man of war from his youth.” I believe this is a passage we’ve read a couple of times.
Now from that passage, there is something that we’re going to see. David required what is known as courage to face Goliath. It was not his experience at first, it was not his catapult and the stones he picked from the brook, what we saw David displayed from the very beginning, in order for him to face Goliath and defeat him was courage. Every other thing that he used in the process of defeating him; the stones and the catapult, they came later. David had all the courage in the world, that he was going to defeat Goliath and he went for it.
Now, what am I saying in essence? If we are going to surmount the numerous challenges we face in our leadership, we must start from the place of courage, knowing fully well that those challenges can be surmounted, that is the beginning of facing the enormous leadership challenges we face in our leadership assignments. We must begin with courage, we must believe in ourselves that God has entrusted us with this leadership assignment and he has given us all that we require to be able to survive, why carrying out the leadership task. So, for you and I as leaders, we need courage. If we’re going to see that the vision, the goals that we have set for ourselves and our organizations will come into fruition, then we need to summon courage first and then every other thing is going to follow.
Now What Does It Entail to Lead with Courage and Vision?
Number one, you need self discipline. One of the things that will help your courage to be at the forefront of your leadership assignment as a leader is self discipline. You must be able to discipline yourself to the point that you summon courage in order to face the Goliath of leadership assignment. No matter how little your leadership sphere may be, there are giants on the way that must be conquered. And in order for you to conquer those giants, you must be self disciplined. Every leader must discipline himself or herself in order to be able to summon courage to overcoming the giant on the way of their leadership destiny. That is the very first thing we require.
The second one is simply focus. As leaders, we need focus, to be able to lead with courage. Focus on the goal, focus on the vision, not looking to the left or to the right, this is how it is if we’re going to lead with courage. One of the things we are going to find out even from the story of David was that David focused on Goliath. David was not looking at the many indices against him. You know, the Bible says “Saul told him that David was a youth and Goliath had been a man of war from his youth.” So, there is a lot of differences among the two of them. But David was focused on one thing, that he was going to overcome Goliath, and that became his driving force and that brought about something from within him, courage.
Every leader has something within them that will trigger that courage that we lack, and one of those things is focus. So as leaders, you must never forget that if we’re going to surmount our leadership problems and challenges that we daily face, then we must be self discipline and we must be able to focus. Now in conclusion, we have seen very briefly, that there are no problems in our leadership assignments that cannot be surmounted. What we simply need as leaders is how we can lead with courage, how we can be self disciplined, how we can focus on the goal and the vision that has been set before us; and then we will see all the numerous challenges that we daily confront in our leadership assignment coming beneath our feet.
This is where we’re going to draw the curtains today on Leaderview and I believe you have picked one or two lessons that you are going to apply in your leadership assignments going forward. Thank you for the gift of your time. We can continue this conversation by reaching out to me via my WhatsApp number or my social media handles. Let me know what you’re thinking about what we’ve shared with ourselves and also let me know how I can be of help in your leadership challenges that you daily face.
Until next time on Leaderview, God bless you.
[Centre for New Dimension Leadership]
