LESSON 1: THE CONCEPT
What is LEADERSHIP?
It was my first official call to a top on-air personality, Mr Geoffrey Uzono with two members of the Scholae, an Association I lead in school. I was really nervous as I had no personal encounter with him and didn’t know what he looked like. In fact, the whole facilitation of the meeting was done by the secretary of the organization.
We had a roundtable discussion and mr Geoff filled us with so much ideas. From his speech, one could tell that he is vast, knowledgeable and has a grasp of happenings around the globe at his fingertips.
I was intimidated at the time and felt really reluctant to speak. I just could not. I didn’t know what to say. I felt bereft of words, facts and statistics to use in a bid to impress him. I wished Akpabio, the secretary of the organization would speak but Mr Geoff thought otherwise. He insisted that we all react. Mr Akpabio as always gave a breathtaking reaction decorated with facts and statistics. Mr Anderson Uman was next. He was a master of the art and he spoke with a decorated flair. They raised the bar and I knew it would be difficult to impress after such an impressive reaction. It was my turn and I just kept it simple and short; obviously below par. It was palpably clear that the two people that went with me were content-filled. Mr. Geoff was awed by the level of intellectualism and he did not hide it.
As we were about stepping out, Mr Geoff called out to me, gave me a firm handshake and said something that was soul-lifting:
“Gideon, I don’t know how you do it but trust me, If you could convince these highly intellectual persons to work with you and buy into your vision so much that they live it like it’s theirs, you are a true leader. It’s not about your outside. It wells from the inside. Don’t lose it.”
I learnt my first leadership lesson from those words which would be our lesson for today. Leadership to me, is a synonym for influence. It is your ability to communicate a vision and have people follow it even without compulsion. It is your ability to attract people ; it is your ability to make people see things through your eyes, feel things through your pores and perceive things through your nose. Leadership is magnetic!!
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