I was able to participate in a one-day Dave Ramsey event back in November 2010; held at Regent University here in town. I wanted to pass on a few of my notes, which by the way, helps me to review and remember all that great information. If you have ever been to a Ramsey event, he is high energy and quite entertaining.
It Began with Definitions:
- Leader: Servant, humility, integrity, ethical, visionary, communicator, mobilizer, inspiring, perseveres, mentor, consistency, compassionate, faithful, confident, and decisive.
- Entrepreneur: Visionary, organized, inspired, mobilized, committed, focused, student/learner, bold, driven, creative, ambitious, risk taker, responsible, and tenacious.
A good leader brings others on board to cover over one’s own weaknesses. If you are not all these thing mentioned above, you suck as a leader. High quality people will follow a high quality leader.
- Leader: the one who rules, guides and inspires others.
- Entrepreneur: a person who organizes, operates and assumes risk for a venture.
- EntreLeadership: the process of leading to cause a venture to grow and prosper.
Organizations and teams are never limited by their opportunity; they are limited by their leader. The enterprise will never outgrow its leader. An organization is limited only by the leader’s capacity, intelligence, education, character, ability and vision. John Maxwell calls this the leadership lid.
To lead, the boss needs to understand the difference between positional power and persuasive power. The traditional model has a triangle with the point at the top, with a positional boss. The servant model has the point at the bottom with a servant leader. The servant-leader inspires and casts a vision while the other has authority because he “writes the checks” and “because I said so.” Anyone can be a boss, but not everyone can be a leader.
Patrick Morley states in The Man in the Mirror, that we as leaders should:
- Take divinely inspired risk.
- Depend upon God.
- Take responsibility.
- Expect opposition.
Passion: the one with passion cares deeply about the outcome. The most untutored person with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without. The movie Braveheart embodies the essence of passion; they fought with passion, and that no one could take away their freedom. He learned about leadership, it is not about the position. “They will follow you, not the nobility or leaders with the title.”
Zig Ziglar said that you get what you inspect, not what you expect. Upward mobility is dependent on downward availability.
The Conductor Illustration: A concert is not about the conductor, it’s about the music. The conductor doesn’t make a sound but makes it all come together. He empowers others to do what they were trained to do. Leaders must awaken the possibilities in other people, brighten their shining eyes. Success is defined by how many eyes are shining around me. Who am I if those around me are not shining?