A Living Guarantee

Demonstrate your indispensable role to people, enlivening them with the conviction that you are a model of virtues that crosses distances.

The young man decided to go in search of his treasure. However, for that, he had to cross the desert to reach Al-Fayoun oasis and meet the alchemist, the only one who knew the secret of the Great Work, and who could help him find his treasure.

A huge caravan was preparing to cross Sahara. Nearly two hundred people were waiting to leave.

- I am the leader of the caravan, said a man with long beard and dark eyes. I own the power of life and death over every person I carry. Because desert is a capricious woman and sometimes drives people mad… There are many kinds of people and different gods lying in everybody's heart. Even so, my only God is Allah, and I swear I will do anything possible to conquer the desert once and for all. Now, I want each of you to swear by the God he believes in, deep in his soul, that he will obey me in all circumstances. In the desert, disobedience means death.

A low murmur crossed the crowd. They were all slowly swearing in front of their God… A sound of a bugle was heard, and everyone prepared for departure. The caravan hit the road. *

Leadership: Can you lower people’s dependence of those uncertainties attracting the impossibility to maintain yourself in a position of authority, by appealing a default type constraint such as "check your perceptions about what îs going on" ?

Leadership takes root because of a certain pliability degree of alternatives for managing risk situations, by turning very fast the reality that people cannot totally understand or entirely rule.

In this case, the leader is accompanied not only by a sense of authenticity, but especially by the obligation to identify and capitalize any alternative meant to regulate freedom of conscience and decision. Especially the freedom of action to the extent that he has the receptivity to support it from others.

In other words, the leader must reduce people’s dependence of those uncertainties attracting the impossibility to maintain himself in a position of authority.

Sometimes, we will benefit from the possibility of personalized experiences, developed alternatively, even tortuously by life, which inhibits the potential for action. It is a kind of joining to a higher coordination entity, manifesting itself as an "all or nothing" phenomenon, where the degree of involvement in setting objectives and facilitate decisions become essential, especially in the context of prolonged tensions.

Thus, for example, we can take into account the knowledge of what may become the starting point for a new phase in life, with its strengths and weaknesses, in the new direction of development set by the superior entity, like a shield against the expansion of perception regarding the parties’ equality, with the various features of the transition to a new beginning from the set of possibilities to choose a partner-leader.

Leadership: Do you effectively use your power to decide to extend your intervention in shaping the destiny of other people so that it outlines what is most fulfilling inside and outside of you?

The superior ones only want honor. When everything goes smoothly, you go your way, thinking that those who accompany you are honored to have you as their leader. Nevertheless, if everything goes wrong, when you wake up going astray, when you no longer have solutions to the problems you are facing, mainly because you have not performed your duties with precision, and you have broken your promises, when you wake up hopelessly caught in "the chains of wandering", then you must pay the huge price: all those who have followed you are now leaving you.

And at that moment, you lose your honor and dignity, you lose any bit of credibility, any trust you still had in you. Your world begins to crumble very slowly…

Once, someone said: "Honor is a jewel, and the tiniest defect lowers its price." Nothing brings you more closely to people than your own honor. The honor people grant you is a proof of their trust in you.

If you do not live up to their expectations, in such a way that would wake up their enthusiasm and trust in you, and make them not doubt of your decisions, becoming the man they want to be their leader, you are about to lose your sense of self-esteem and consciousness of your quality as a man of good parts. A true leader measures his value by the valuation of people around him.

Honor requires warranties: Do you train your ability to connect with other people by their full submission to the increased pressure of a mission from which they can determine where your representative virtues fit?

Everything was clear, and people, strongly influenced by the words of the caravan's leader, knew exactly how things would happen. They knew exactly what to do and when. They were aware that they had to comply with all their leader's requirements and obey him, always considering his decisions right. It was a reality they all had to accept, a reality they could not deny, distort or denigrate. Their duty was to listen to him with respect, but also with fear, responsibility and obedience.

In his turn, the leader of the caravan, being the only one who knew the way to the oasis, was considered essential: he had to feed tens, hundreds of people, families and children; he was responsible for their safety. Nevertheless, he felt the sincere conviction that he would help each of them to reach the oasis, and for that, he had to pay with total submission. Furthermore, people had the total guarantee that, when he decides, he does it only for their sake and for the success of the trip.

As a leader, you must have the situation under control, even when you fall asleep. You guarantee the success for people as you do it for yourself, fully aware of your destiny and their. Therefore, do not allow them to deny your value. Think well whenever you take a mission, a responsibility, because you can easily lose your honor. And with it, you will inevitably lose your power of influence.

Your representative virtues, embodying an individual nuance of respect and recognition that supports a noble cause, can fit into the criteria for defining the experience that people around you experience. Recognition of virtues does little to simplify your mission: each person must be placed within a safe area of interaction with your skills, with what you experience in every moment and with what is beyond your own appearance.

Leadership is a model of virtues that crosses distances even more, making the call to unity more resounding in the soul of men.

Conclusion: The leader, chosen according to some unanimously recognized virtues and aptitudes, guarantees success for people as he does it for himself. He is a living guarantee that things will take the right track in order to achieve the common goals.

Just as a coach must know the effort limit of his players, consequently, what and how much to ask from them - so do you, as to develop your level of leadership, must first know your limits, and to train your ability to connect to the other people, by clarifying your vision and strategies for achieving goals. At the same time, you must assimilate and follow with holiness those rules and norms that would foster your relations with them, and to know how much to ask from them, so that you arrive with them safely at the finish line.

Demonstrate your indispensable role to people, enlivening them with the conviction that you are a model of virtues that crosses distances.

* Note: Paulo Coelho - The Alchimist , Publishing House Humanitas, 2002.