THE leaders’ greatest job is to think. Zimbabwean companies need creative thinkers and innovators.
SUCCESS LIFE: JONAH NYONI
Global trends have shifted, Zimbabwe and Africa are greatly lagging behind, but there is so much potential.
That is why other players such as China, United Kingdom and the United States still want to come and invest in Africa. I always wonder why other companies don’t read trends, while others are winning.
Leaders should think ahead
Being pro-active is one characteristic that keeps the leader upbeat and leading the game.
The leader evades being irrelevant by growing himself especially through learning, listening, looking and linking.
What I usually do in seminars is to ask how many books members of the audience have read in the last 90 days.
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If it is none, that gives me a general idea of the people that I’m about to speak to; they could be adhering to or using old ideas to solve new problems.
As a leader, you should bring remedies to new plights! Be innovative and creative to keep yourself competitive! The leader gets ready for the future.
The information and technology industry proves to us that what was useful yesterday, could be obsolete today.
As leaders, we should be amenable to change. To every traditional leader, the frank truth is that change is inevitable.
An all-time classic quote by Eric Hoffer (1898-1983) says: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
The leader surrounds himself with thinkers
A great leader can’t make it alone, neither would they succeed if they are surrounded by wrong people.
The bigger the dream, the more specialised people are needed to help the leader accomplish it.
Maxwell (1995: 3) says: “Those closest to the leader will determine the success level of that leader.”
Game changers infuse in you, as a leader, a sense of confidence, commitment, courage, creativity and a positive outlook.
If you are always the best person in the crowd, change your friends, and look for people that will challenge you to be better.
It’s a fact of life that association determines or brings about assimilation.
Friends contribute to your thought pattern. The Bible says: “Do not be deceived and misled. Evil companionships (communion, associations) corrupt and deprave good manners and morals and character (1 Corinthians 15: 33, Amp). Allow positive alliances into your life.
The leader respects the law of cause and effect
Your results as a leader can never lie. Results do not come coincidentally, but by a conscious action.
To start off, plan your work, and then work your plan.
To every effect there is a cause, whether good or bad. The most failures or problems we see today are in most cases caused by a human phenomenon that is what we normally called a “leadership crisis”.
For me, that’s the worst disease that could ever affect any company, church or country.
A great example is the presence potholes on Africa’s roads, which are caused by the cars on the roads.
In countries where there are no potholes, there are cars too. Neither are potholes caused by the unavailability of recourses, as some people would love to argue.
It is a problem of maintenance, which is directly a leadership problem.
In Africa, the major problem is not the lack of resources, but the lack of resourcefulness.
The challenge to every leader is to change their thinking pattern and value the power of work.
The leader embraces the law of integrative complexity
The law of integrative complexity says that an individual (despite the background and the circumstantial surroundings), that “integrates” and “uses” the greatest amount of information in any field soon rises to the top of that field.
According to Brian Tracy in his book 21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires, when you read for an hour every day, it translates to a book a week.
One book a week translates to 50 plus books a year. Fifty books a year adds up to 500 books in 10 years.
This makes you gain a competitive edge over others. As a leader, you become a pro in any field of your choosing.
The leader must love the law of learning agility
The times are turbulent, treacherous, tough, trying and taunting to those who don’t want to adopt and adapt.
The leader has to be willing to quickly adopt new tools, techniques that are relevant in solving complex problems, in confronting new hurdles, and facing new challenges of our times.
The leader has to constantly and continually be developing, growing, and using emerging tools.
Cashman (2013) in Forbes says: “Learning agility is a key to unlocking our adaptation proficiency. It is ‘knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do’. Research shows that learning agility is a reliable indicator of leadership potential because learning agile people ‘excel at absorbing information from their experiences and then extrapolating from those to navigate unfamiliar situations’.
“Learning agility is a complex set of skills that allows us to learn something in one situation and apply it in a completely different situation. It is about gathering patterns from one context and then using those patterns in a completely new context.
“In short, Learning agility is the ability to learn, adapt, and apply ourselves in constantly morphing conditions.”
Tim Casasola, (2016) in an article The Most Important Trait Leaders Need For the 21st Century, says that to have the learning agility, you are:
Innovative: You aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo.
Performing: You stay calm in the face of difficulty.
Reflective: You take time to reflect on your experiences.
Risking: You intentionally put yourself in challenging situations.
Open-minded: You resist the temptation to be defensive and listen.”
The leader respects the law of a daily ritual.
Any success, and leadership success for that matter, is hinged on our daily programme.
In my book (2015: 13) Inspirations for Success, I said: “Successful people do day by day what average people do once in a while.
“Success is not about public recital, but private rehearsal.
“Your daily ritual eventually becomes your outer reality.
“Be self-disciplined. If you do not become hard on yourself, life will be hard for you. Pain brings a prize, but if you do not master that, you might have to face a painful life.”
It has been said, time and again, that great athletes are not made in the ring, they are merely recognised there.
The leader understands the law of the sub-conscious mind
Our mind pattern or paradigm has a big effect on our lives. Thoughts control five obvious components in our lives. Thoughts control our feelings, behaviour, habits, personality and our future.
Like in a computer, our sub-conscious mind is our software that regulates our performance.
When the software gets attacked by a virus, it malfunctions. So is our sub-conscious mind.
The viruses of the mind include self-doubt, negative stimuli, negative words, negative auto-suggestions, lack of faith or the presence of fear, ignorance.
For the software to constantly update, it has to be upgraded; so is our mind. And one of those means is by reading.
The imprint of your sub-conscious mind has a greater effect on how you express yourself daily.
As a leader, John M. Tibane (2014: 39) in his book, Enlightened Leadership says: “Don’t underestimate yourself. Don’t undermine yourself. Don’t undersell yourself. You are engineered to excel, designed to deliver, wired to win, powered to perform, and created to create.”
The leader welcomes the law of seasons
Every leader should learn trends in seasons. Great leaders don’t only wear jerseys in winter and stay indoors, but they see an opportunity to go skating and snowboarding and receive their rewards.
The Bible gives us a great illustration in 1 Chronicles 12: 32. It says: “And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.”
Producing a product, whose season has passed, is not only bad, but it’s a sheer waste of resources and time. In seasons of harsh and hard times, leaders derive lessons.
In every obstruction, they choose to see an instruction.
In times of plenty, they stock-up for the dry times ahead. They are enormously ready to embrace any situation with a positive attitude.
The leader appreciates the law of succession
A transformed leader is not afraid to be succeeded. Leadership success is possible when we appreciate that the word “success” cannot be separated from the word “successor”.
Read that again! A leadership and management guru, Peter Drucker said: “There is no success without a successor.” But why are some leaders afraid to surrender the reigns to others?
They think they are irreplaceable. They suffer from insecurity and they think they are the only ones able to do it best.
Parting point: Linda Proctor (pg 45) in her free downloadable e-book titled Earn it & Enjoy It says: “Look around. The world is definitely changing, and it will never be the same again. Power is slipping away, disappearing from some circles, and reappearing in others.
“Countries, companies and individuals, who have held the power in the past are quickly losing it, if in fact they have not already watched it melt in their hands.
“Their often smug, sometimes selfish, domineering, complacent attitude has cost them dearly. They are confused and this confusion is frequently fuelled by their own ignorance.
“When that happens, it ultimately leads to anger or resentment – sometimes both.
“This negative energy is then quite frequently misdirected, possibly at their loved ones, which then causes an entire new set of problems”
Jonah Nyoni is an author, success coach and certified leadership/business trainer. He is the author of Inspiration for Success and Success Within Reach. Contact details: Tel: 0772 581 918. Email: [email protected]. Twitter@jonahnyoni.
