Practice Of Leadership

Practice of Leadership

Recently, mostly after the GSC Christian professional conference at UCLA, I’ve been thinking about being a leader and exercising leadership in every area of my life, including family, career, mission, etc.

Here are some of those I’ve been brainstorming about how to practice leadership:

What is a leader? According to Merriam-Webster dictionary

2 : a person who leads: as a : guide, conductor b (1) : a person who directs a military force or unit (2) : a person who has commanding authority or influence c (1) : the principal officer of a British political party (2) : a party member chosen to manage party activities in a legislative body (3) : such a party member presiding over the whole legislative body when the party constitutes a majority d (1) : conductor c (2) : a first or principal performer of a group

I don’t like this definition much. I want to quote what Jack Welch answered to Reginald Jones’ question about leadership while he’d been racing for the CEO position at GE, but cannot find it. It goes somewhat like this:

A leader is someone who leads others to become more than what they expect to be. (from Jack Welch & GE way)

Later, Jack Welch shaped the idea above into 5 traits of leadership as follows:

5 traits of leadership by Jack Welch

Prerequisite: Integrity, intelligence and maturity. These characteristics are baseline.

• Positive energy: the capacity to go-go-go with healthy vigor and an upbeat attitude through good times and bad.
• Ability to energize others: to take any hill
• Edge: the ability to make tough calls, to say yes or no, not maybe
• Talent to execute: get things done
• Passion: They care deeply. They sweat; they believe.

Jack says that the first two traits (positive energy and ability to energize others) and the last one (passion) are inborn, but the other two (edge and talent to execute) are something you should practice.

Therefore, to practice leadership, we’d better focus on the practice of the edge and talent to execute.

So, here are my vision, mission, and action plans (for a moment) to become a leader :

Vision

To become a leader who leads others at family, work, church, and etc to become more than what they can expect to be.

Mission

• To be positive.
• To energize others.
• To have edge.
• To have talent to execute.
• To be passionate.

Action plans

To be positive (To get in shape physically, mentally, and spiritually).

• Do work out on a regular basis
• Do read insightful articles from innovative people
• Do get advices from mentors
• Do pray and QT everyday
• Don’t read negative articles
• Don’t be anxious

To energize others.

• Do pray for others (family, coworkers, church members, mentors, friends, etc)
• Do keep in touch with others on a regular basis by email, facebook/twitter, phone call, coffee break, etc.

To have edge.

• Do evaluate every decision making (whether it was good or bad or could be better)
• Do keep sensitive and listening to Holy Spirit
• Do keep priorities in mind always

To have talent to execute.

• Do practice shorter preparation and faster execution
• Do concentrate on work
• Do set short-term and long-term goals
• Do evaluate short-term and long-term performances
• Do have efficient and enough rest
• Don’t be lazy
• Don’t be distracted
• Don’t be exhausted

Let’s see how it goes. Fight on!