Seth Godin on Leadership!

I’ve been meaning to post this for quite some time now and have just been slack – but SLACK NO MORE PEOPLE!

I had a book called “Tribes” by Seth Godin on my READING LIST (go see what I’m reading) – didn’t take very long to plow through it and it was some really great stuff.  Seth does a tremendous job of thinking in new ways and challenging the status quo (he calls it being a “heretic” and I think I like that a whole lot!) I’ve been keeping up with his blog and desire to read more of his stuff.  Anyway, another major thing he does that I like is encourage people to reproduce the ideas he shares – so that is what I’m about to do.

On page 107 of the book, he shares what he believes to be “THE ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP” and this is what he had to say:

Leaders CHALLENGE the status quo.
Leaders  CREATE a CULTURE around their goal and involve others in that culture.
Leaders have an extraordinary amount of CURIOSITY about the world they’re trying to change.
Leaders use CHARISMA (in a variety of forms) to attract and motivate followers.
Leaders COMMUNICATE their vision of the future.
Leaders COMMIT to a vision and make decisions based on that commitment.
Leaders CONNECT their followers to one another.

Then he apologizes by saying, “Sorry for the alliteration, but that’s the way it worked out.” – which if you know me you know that there is NO APOLOGY needed for I truly LOVE ALLITERATION!

He closes the section by saying:

If you consider the leaders in your organization or community, you’ll see that every one of them uses some combination of these seven elements.  You don’t have to be in charge or powerful or pretty or connected to be a leader.  You do have to be committed.

So my added challenge is this – being a person who follows Christ, I believe it is of the utmost IMPORTANCE to see great LEADERS being raised up.  There is no time like the present to realize that we need more solid LEADERS.  My inquiry to you would be this:

Are you  CHALLENGING the status quo, CREATING a CULTURE and involving others, CURIOUS, using CHARISMA to attract & motivate, COMMUNICATING your vision, COMMITTED to that vision, and finally CONNECTING people to one another???

If NOT – WHY NOT? As Seth tends to say – WE NEED YOU NOW!!!