By Dr. Ted Msipa
Leaders Build Vital Relationships
Leaders Need Allies
Relationships are vital components of leading. This is true for individuals and for nations. The History of Israel is a case in point. It is full of a number of treaties which it entered into as a nation with other nations ever since it migrated from Egypt. This signifies the importance of relations in life and business. Relational Leadership is the key to leading your followers to a common goal.
Every leader must learn how to build relationships with others. As a leader you are only as good as the relationships you have nurtured. If you desire to be a leader, there is need to develop the ability to inspire and work with people as you progress toward your vision. One is too insignificant a number to achieve greatness. History tells us that no major accomplishment was ever done by a single person. Even Armstrong who went to the moon did not do so alone. He had a supporting team of powerful engineers.
Relational Leadership will help you build the effective relationship with your employees and followers.
Man is a social animal
Every big vision or dreams cannot be achieved alone; you need the cooperation of people. As a leader building relational skill is necessary to inspire others to a common goal or achieve your dreams. Relational Leadership is a leader’s ability to organize people, skills, and resources together to achieve a common goal. It based on the understanding that man loves to live in fellowship with others and needs to co-exist with others as well.
In order to become an effective leader and expand your corporate wings, whether in business, non-profit organization and other entities while improving performance, these relational leadership principles are necessary.
Principles of Relational Leadership
Inspire Confidence
A good leader is a person in whom people can have confidence. People will gain confidence in you if you are sold out and dedicated to your purpose, faithful over little things and willing to sacrifice for your vision. It is a part of the journey; as a leader you will inevitably be criticized by some people. Yet you will just as much inspire others, even if you are misunderstood or opposed at first.
Love people
Leaders are supposed to be friendly and openly invite people into their lives. They should not be afraid to extend themselves to others because they are secure in themselves.
They are easy to befriend because they are secure and confident in their self-worth and can share themselves without fear. They have an understanding an open attitude that puts others at ease.
True leaders care about people with an unconditional attitude, and they always seek the potential within them. They are able to speak the truth with love and sensitivity
Leaders are peacemakers
Relationship Leadership is one which keeps both the peace and restores it after it has been broken. An important function of leadership is reconciliation, the ability to discover common ground between opposing viewpoints and then to induce both parties to accept it.
A good leader is a holistic person, he does not depend on the knowledge of this world alone; he is filled with God’s word and he judges everything in light of God’s wisdom.
Lift are lifters
Leaders are lifters. The attitude of a true leader is cheerful, sweet and optimistic. This attitude is contagious and acts like a magnetic field, drawing out the best in others. The Relational leaders find their joy and fulfilment in seeing others develop and release their own potential, and become leaders themselves. They do not practice leadership witchcraft.
Leaders learn from failures
Failure is a part of success. In every organization, business or company, there will be opportunities to fail and some people will fail but failure is not supposed to be fatal. Leaders need to realize that everyone is capable of failing. Smart leaders use failure as a major tool of motivation.
They do not make people feel degraded and useless, instead they encourage them and say, “look, you didn’t do it right, so let me show you how to do it.”
Relational leaders know that fail is the first attempt at learning. They know that failure is the greatest builder in life. Most of the greatest success stories are a product of major failures.
A relational leader is able to deal with personal failures and with the failures of followers. He notes that failures are lessons, and then moves on.
It is your time to lead
Contemporary society is suffering from a lack of leadership, but it takes leaders like you and me so that we can help change this situation. We all have within us the ability to become change agents in our time. There is a leader inside of you who is crying to come out and lead.
It is criminal for us to wait for someone else to take responsibility for the future. It is about time we rise up from the seats of followers and enter the school of leadership. We ought to be fully convinced that it is God’s will that we become leaders and lead others to realize their full potential in him. We should refuse to settle for less than our best. If we do not do that history will be unkind to us.