Leadership Career Tracks Is a Leadership Position in Lions in Your Future?
LEADERSHIP CAREER TRACKS – IS A LEADERSHIP POSITION IN LIONS IN YOUR FUTURE?
GOAL
DESIGNING YOUR CAREER BLUEPRINT
MISSION
IMPLEMENTING YOUR BLUEPRINT – ENHANCE YOUR CHANCESOF MOVING “UP THE LADDER” OF LEADERSHIP
LEARN TO WALK BEFORE YOU RUN
A simple definition is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.
Everyone has an opinion on what qualifications a lion should possess beforehand to be considered for a leadership position.
There is a pervasive myth that all real leaders are natural born: Either you got it or you don't. Some people grow up with the expectation that they are to lead in the future.
Then there are those who spend time learning the ways of power, cultivating their tans and good hair, and who think that being nominated and elected makes them leaders. Sorry, but that is evidence of good genes, a stylist, and enough time on their hands to sit under a tanning lamp.
If you see a disparity between who’s leading the club meeting and who’s leading the members, then the Lion running the meeting is not the real leader.
Leadership embodies: decisiveness, awareness, focus, accountability, empathy, confidence, optimism, honesty, and inspiration.
The true measure of leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less. If you don’t have influence, you will never be able to lead others.
True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that cannot be mandated. It must be earned. The only thing a title can buy is a little time – either to increase your level of influence with others or to erase it.
He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.
Leadership is the ability to see a problem and be the solution. So many lions are willing to talk about problems or can even empathize, but not many can see the problem or challenge and rise to it.
A true leader takes initiative and trust their members to perform efficiently and independently.
A true leader inspires members through a shared vision and create an environment where members feel valued and fulfilled.
A true leader is responsible to establish goals, innovate, motivate and trust. A true leader is passionate and compassionate and can energize a club and district.
Leadership involves being a good influence to the members and you owe it to yourself and your fellow members to always be wise enough to recognize your weak points, and humble enough to work on correcting them.
CLUB LEVEL LEADERSHIP
A lackluster effort to conduct new membership recruitment results to a small membership pool to select club officers from and thus quality of leadership declines.
Poor quality club officers transcends to poor quality district cabinet members and transcends to poor quality candidates for district governors.
The growth process of leadership develops daily, and not in a day. Growth development is a collection of learnable skills.
Lions must be provided opportunities to learn and grow, to improve themselves and in time become a strong leader.
Some Lions yearn to lead and accomplish great things. Some have leadership thrust upon them when they are asked to work with others to get a task done in the club. But whether eager or unwilling, if the leader is going to be successful, he or she needs to lead at some point.
IS A LEADERSHIP POSITION AVAILABLE FOR YOU?
Well that all depends on whether you have the building blocks to build on.
- Leadership attitude: Leaders don't force others to help them achieve goals. They persuade, inspire, coax – and motivate. Leaders are successful because those who follow actually want to.
- Leadership is the act of gaining cooperation from people in order to accomplish something. If you can do that, you can lead.
Learning to lead
- Circumstances that create a need for leadership
Something needs to be done
No one person can do the task, need others to help
- Circumstances that let you lead
You got others interested to help get the task done
You take responsibility for accomplishing the task
- You exercise leadership
You harness the combined efforts of others for success
The leadership attitude
Leaders don't give orders, they don't force others to help them. They set examples, they persuade, inspire, coax and motivate. Leaders are successful because those who follow actually want to.
Leaders are goal oriented, a clear picture of what is the end product, develop a plan of action and how to track the route to success.
Anyone at any level can lead so don't wait for someone to give you permission to do something, give yourself permission to no longer wait, frustrated and angry that
nothing happens. By taking responsibility for a goal, leaders also take charge of their own lives.
Leadership skills
Skills for leading are vital.
People skills
Communication. Speaking and writing clearly. Develop listening skills. Listen to the issues the people you work with. People who work with you must feel comfortable to come to you to hear what you have to say.
Motivation. Get people to approach a goal in a creative way and finding value for themselves in what they are doing.
Coaching. Giving support in what they are doing. Leaders who can coach have already learned how to see the abilities in others and how to achieve good performance. A coach nurtures the people he works with to become better.
Organizational skills
Staying on top of what needs to be done starts with time management. Prioritize what needs to be done and set the time line to accomplish it.
Delegation of work prevents you from being the choke point and doing it all by yourself.
Personal traits and skills
How to develop leadership skills: “Behave as though you are, and you will become what you seek.”
Vision
Courage
Loyalty
Self-discipline
Strong work ethic
Creativity
Ability to learn from mistakes
Willingness to stand for something
Self discipline
- To consider whether you are leadership material, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you can commit to developing five leadership skills:
- beinga proactive analytical planner
- have a vision of your direction
- sharing your vision, not just “talk a good game” but act and be seen as taking effective action for the good of your club and district
- and finally, inspire others through your examples.
CLUB LEVEL OFFICER CANDIDACY
To enhance your success for upward mobility on the Club level, one should have:
- Served as Chair or member of every standing committee provided in LCI’s Constitution and bylaws.
- Served in every Club Office
DISTRICT LEVEL LEADERSHIP
To enhance your success on the District level, one should have:
In addition to the above, to have served as
- A zone chair
- And at least 3 different cabinet committees.
Only with years of successes and failure can a Lion experience the invaluable lessons of what it means to lead.
Positive impact on the club and district is predicated on good leadership.
The higher you want to climb, the more you need leadership.
The greater the impact you want to make, the greater the influence needs to be.