About leadership: why a leader is not equal to another leader:
“A leader is the one who has his feet on ground and the look toward the future “this quotation from Tertius Zongo, former Prime Minister of Burkina Faso summarize what means this very heavy qualification. In fact, as we saw in our first Humphreys seminar, while talking about Abraham Lincoln, JFK,and Martin Luther King Jr whom “I have a dream” 50th anniversary is going on, we can find several kind of leadership. When we state that a leader have to be a great orator, the capacity to convince people by ideas and arguments and whom don’t hesitate to delegate his power and be a good listener, we can list a lot of people from Martin Luther King Jr to President Barack Obama, coming through Gandhi, Confucius, Aung San Suu Kyi Thomas Sankara, Dale Carnegie, Benazir Bhuto, Nelson Mandela… In addition to those great leadership skills, there are more behavior that strengthen a leader and stands him out from the crowd: the self-confidence, that means to work out one’s attitude, model one’s personality, have a spirit of enterprise as well as a team spirit and open-minded. To fit the leader’s clothes, it’s important to avoid being selfish, dictatorial, spreading lake of confidence, fear or doubt…
And the most important as a leader, is to remain yourself, to keep your beliefs, your nature, your dream on track. Because being a leader should mean a person who has a very early vision, know what he wants to do, how to do it for a long lasting effect. The fight now is having this ability to bring people to you, to make them share your vision, and leave a lasting impression while working to improve people life. How many people, changed radically their mind after earning “leadership positions”? How many of them have forgotten their friends of hard time and fight, how many of them have skipped their long-time struggle because they don’t any more feel basic needs, being at high positions today? How many of them have changed their vision from a day to another for no reason? Too much. They are to be added among what we call the “leaders by rights”: like ministers, institutions chairman, CEO…named at their position.
We can finally, find “ leaders in fact”, whose charisma shines its best radiance, whose speech create deeper change into people mind, and heart, who don’t need artifice to convince people to do something to follow their ideal or make right decisions. When these leaders get to right positions, as for the “leaders by right”, their inspire people in right way and are like these seed which grow up, extend and carry unbelievable benefits for their society, from generations to generations. Through this Humphrey program I feel to have already reached the last corner before the road heading to this level of leadership.
Be open-minded, be brave, ignore the death, be the bridge which bring people from shadow to light, be Martin Luther King Jr
I found your differentiation between “leaders by rights” and “leaders in fact” to be not only intriguing, but also inspiring. I whole-heartedly agree with you that often times people who are put in leadership positions are blinded by the power and forget or reject those whom they were once company to. While in my own life I’ve always tried to be a good and ethical leader when it was my turn to lead, I’m even more inspired now to keep in mind my past and those who’ve supported me in hard times.
That being said, I’d say a “leader in fact” that is also a “leader by right” is the ultimate image of a strong leader. A leader that is self-made is quite obviously a strong leader because he/she became such through their innate ability to lead and inspire. A leader that is both in fact and by right was given the opportunity to lead- justified or not- and takes that opportunity to make something great!
Either way, I’d say you made an important point in your post and I very much enjoyed reading it!
-Zahra