What is leadership?
If you lead you will discover that you are the servant of all. That does not mean that you will be running around mopping up after everybody, on the contrary, if you are a leader, you might think that you are the only person walking your lonely path, perhaps the first you will know about leadership is when you look behind you and discover that people are following (literally or metaphorically) wherever you go. Turn right, turn left, go slower, go faster and they are still there, faithfully coming after you.

Leadership cannot be acquired through learning. Either you are a leader or you are not. Leadership can be refined, honed and understood, but not learned as you would learn a language or how to drive a car.

Leadership is not management, neither is management leadership, however the one needs the other in order to be truly successful. Leadership moves at a faster pace than management and dynamic leadership requires responsive, responsible, interactive and reactive management in order to succeed. A function of being a leader is to select managers, but more of that another time! Each is equally important in its own right, but managers need leaders and vice versa. Management is a function, but leadership is a calling.

Some characteristics of a leader.
A leader is a visionary, a front runner. Nobody ever led from behind! He or she is driven, consumed by a passion to accomplish, to do things that most people would never attempt, to achieve what many would see as impossible, to go where none have gone before. True leadership is a rare commodity, and leaders are not appreciated by everyone.

Leadership is a lonely life, and by that I do not mean that a leader is alone, rather the opposite is true, but I do mean that he or she has a responsibility to every other member of the team, the group, the family, the Company or the country to provide direction, to sow vision into those who follow. A leader will not only have vision, but also he will cast it.

What does a leader bring with him?
But what do I mean by ‘Vision'? Vision includes a direction in which to travel, but much more than that, it is the fulfilment of that vision, the completion of it in his or her mind's eye, the fulfilment of something complete and entire before it is even begun, that sets a leader apart. In fact "where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint." wrote King Solomon who was the wisest man who ever lived. Without a vision, the vast majority of people become lost, they flounder, quite out of their depth, so a leader has a responsibility not only to sow (cast) a vision into the lives of his or her followers, a leader also has a responsibility to continue to share that vision, to do, to motivate through that sharing, to shine a light in the darkness on the road ahead so that others can see their way.

A leader has a responsibility to lead until the job is done. Regardless of how difficult things become, a true leader will be tenacious, will continue to forge ahead until the goal is reached, the vision fulfilled, the dream is complete and there is triumph for all in success. Only in accomplishment does a true leader have satisfaction; only when the vision is fulfilled does a leader permit him- or herself to rest.

A leader? Who needs one?
Any organisation, company, team, family or country needs a leader, but above all, every individual needs a leader in order to be other than mediocre and perhaps that is why as a country we are floundering under the weight of unfulfilled plans. Plans after plans after plans immobilise us until we are stopped still in our tracks confused by instructions to go here, rush there, do that and complete the other. Real leadership, regardless of political persuasion, is needed to purposefully unite the community to overcome its difficulties, and the malaise it feels as it sinks under the weight of bureaucracy and fiddling, in order to regenerate motivation, to recreate an environment in which enthusiasm and enterprise overcome lethargy and demoralisation.

The challenge of change is upon us and our society, and all our lords and masters can do is to enforce the law in an ever-tightening restriction of democracy and restriction of freedom, stifling us to the extent that we need to ask "Will we ever recognise a leader when one stands up?" and "Have we been without one for so long that we have forgotten what one looks like, what one sounds like or even what it is to follow a true and faithful leader?"

Never! We have only to get close enough to listen. A true follower's heart will respond like a compass, swinging unerringly towards the cry to change. Wait for it, do not lose heart, there are leaders yet in this land! Oh, that they would stand up and be counted!

And finally, a question?
The real question is this: "Have our leaders in every spectrum of society been so subjugated to mediocrity and immorality that they dare not sound the clarion call of vision for fear of ridicule? Dare they cast the vision of freedom, turning over and destroying the idols of subsidy, handouts and an apparent uncontrollable slide towards totalitarianism?' I believe that if ever we needed to hear that rallying call from a true leader it is now!