Neculai Fantanaru
Everything Depends On The Leader
Everything Depends On The Leader
A young soldier asked once a great general if he could become as famous as he is. The general, who had fought in many wars and he passed through a lot of challenges in his life, talked to the him very seriously:
- Young man, to be a general is not an easy thing. Would you have the courage to fight beside your soldiers in the first line? Would you be capable to order the murder with cold blood of the enemys soldier without blinking? Would you be capable to give your life for your country? And not in the last case, do you think that if you are taken prisoner, you will have the strength to keep the precious information despite the most horrible torture?
- No, sir, said disappointed the young boy.
- Then for the love of God, stop dreaming at a general career. Find a job where will not have to take this kind of choices.
The history is sprinkled with sad stories of several people who failed in life because they did not have the necessary skills for the profession they practiced. Just like the young boy in this story, many people dream to reach one day the highest borders of success, to become famous people, presidents, cinema stars, valuable singers, great champions, etc, but not everybody has the talent and the skills they need to be in the domain they like.
In the conditions in which for a high level job you need a certain preparation and a native talent, the number of those who really reach the peak of the professional pyramid will be ever more less, and that is because one can observes more and more the fact that people's tendency is to earn the most, but without working up for it, without making additional efforts in order to improve in the field they work in.
Being a leader in a certain domain requires more than knowledge, requires courage, persistency and a big responsibility. Requires work and sacrifice. Means you have to take the toughest decisions which other persons are not capable to take, to have the initiative and to assume sometimes enormous risks. The enthusiasm some people have is indeed a big quality, but it turns out fast if they do not have the necessary skills in the domain in which they want to do their activity. In consequence, it's best not to aspire at high level jobs if you cannot take the enormous responsibilities and, especially, if you cannot have a right and objective judgement.
Leadership is tangential to the benefits of a sinuous, steep trajectory, upon which is achieved, in the form of a curve, the transfer of personality from a man who has a sense of noble confidence in his merits – to a mere participant on the world stage.
But as the force of thought and creation, the only teacher of hope in the great scene of change proves to be the expensive price of a decision to overthrow old ideas, concepts or beliefs that self-limit you.
The human brain takes over millions of information with the speed of light, by creating an image of the environment and perceiving this image in two dimensions, colored and in motion. So you too, to discover your existing potential, first you need to take control over your own "guidance system" provided by your hidden talents and skills, and then to create an image of what you want to become, and to focus on that side.
Leadership is a function of thinking and creation that does not automatically obtain a patent, but to which have access only those dependent on knowledge. The immense opportunity to be in the midst of events that mark some of the transformations and evolution of consciousness, and the power to be incomparably better than all in managing your own fears, doubts, and defects, arises when you manage to make the switch from relational to react.
The one who aims to a leading position has to make many sacrifices. The ambition of glory and the high goals are desired by many people, but up to a point, when things become increasingly more difficult. This is the moment when most of them quit dreaming and no longer fight for their ideals. You cannot reach on the peaks of success if you do not have the necessary ambition, just as it is not easy to swim if you do not you move your hands and feet. You have to move, must take the initiative, and to make willingly the necessary changes on the professional level without anyone pushing you from behind.
Behind every fulminating success is a man who has experienced the greatest failure. You cannot walk in a natural and upward path, serving as a crossing from one landmark to another, developing consistent concepts from the ambiguous and inexplicable allegations of any individual believed to be Robin Hood.
The dominant ideas about life and the value of a strong character are born from the attempt to cheer with oneself, with suffering, with some of the reality that you did not think possible, sometimes even with death, as in the case of war.
The conclusion is one: people who aspire to an act of leadership, but who do not have the necessary abilities and competencies to face, with success, the challenges which involves the consequences of self-consciousness, usually quit when they realize how hard it is, when they feel that the balance of success does not bend in their favour.
Do you still insist to believe that you have the necessary skills for a leader? Do you have a leadership-model that you would follow? Do you think that you can be by yourself a role-model? Are you Intending to do things right and afterwards to lead the others? Or, first you want to lead them, and only after to make things right?
Take control over your guidance system, so that you can transform yourself into what you are able to be.
Why read this book? Because it is critical to optimizing your performance. Because it reveals the main coordinates after that are build the character and skills of the leaders, highlighting what it is important for them to increase their influence.
The essential characteristic of this book in comparison with others on the market in the same domain is that it describes through examples the ideal competences of a leader. I never claimed that it's easy to become a good leader, but if people will...
For some leaders, "leading" resembles more to a chess game, a game of cleverness and perspicacity; for others it means a game of chance, a game they think they can win every time risking and betting everything on a single card.
I wrote this book that conjoins in a simple way personal development with leadership, just like a puzzle, where you have to match all the given pieces in order to recompose the general image.
The aim of this book is to offer you information through concrete examples and to show you how to obtain the capacity to make others see things from the same angle as you.
Without considering it a concord, the book is representing the try of an ordinary man - the author - who through simple words, facts and usual examples instills to the ordinary man courage and optimism in his own quest to be his own master and who knows... maybe even a leader.
