Becoming the Success Master Being a diagnostician is like espionage. After many years of interviewing thousands of people failing to thrive, I realized that too many of them just stumble through life like playing a game of poker without knowing the rules. Nimble Jack is one of the casualties of this dilemma, who, wisely enough, sought out a personal coach. He is the hero and inspiration for this book. He invited me regularly to his office as his personal coach and also to act as a proxy in handling challenging cases in his role as counselor for his company. He mastered my dynamic model of influence and the psychology of winning which are prime levers that drove his performance from good to great. After reading this book, you'll understand why, in spite of good education and holding a job, you may still be echelons away from becoming the success master or star you are destined to be.

Leadership for Success

A Dynamic Model of InfluenceBy Alfred Nkut

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Dr. Alfred Nkut, M.D.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-6615-1

Chapter One

The Paradigm Shift

The Heroic Mission

You have the choice to behave in a manner worthy of being followed as a leader all the time, whether at home or the workplace. It is of great importance that the people who choose to follow you do so out of respect, not obligation or fear.

You need a foundation of ethics as well. This is best expressed through Aristotle's classification of leadership as ethos, pathos, or logos. Ethos relates to ethics, the values held in common by society that defines what is good and bad. In order to be convincing to your followers, you need to be logical. Pathos relates to passion for your vision. Showing some emotion and excitement connects belief in your cause, and it is very inspiring for your team members. Before they will follow you, people want to know that you believe in the cause, too. Logos is ability to think precisely and creatively and to help others believe in what you are saying

Leading is simply the process of helping yourself or others get somewhere. This may involve changing your own thoughts in order to adopt a new paradigm. You may sometimes have to influence people to change their perceptions as well.

Leadership qualities like integrity, vision, discipline, and many more described in this book form the basis of leadership. Most of these qualities have to do with your character or who you are. Not so many of them deal with what you do. Most of leadership has to do with who we are, not what we do, even though what we do is also important in leadership. It's also because this book does not deal with positional leadership or authority. Whether you are in position of authority or not, this book is aimed at improving your life and making a difference. If you are in a position of authority, this book will help you become a better leader by the practice and acquisition of these qualities, that is, self-improvement.

The topics chosen are deemed to have the key principles that are foundational for being a good leader. I initiated a research study that the Vertigo Design Group completed to find out how one could use his or her ability to influence for success. It's long been observed, however, that most of our success comes from within. It's my conviction that most of our success comes from our inner motivation, attitude, and efforts rather than external factors. Success comes from within.

"A heroic mission is a vehicle that transcends both you and your purpose to something bigger than you. It has the quality of immortality and legacy." Its essence is for the common good, thus it's both personal and universal. Ralph Waldo Emerson described it as knowing that "even one life has breathed easier because you have lived." So the scope of one's mission is irrelevant. We cannot all be generals. We need some foot soldiers, and all these roles contribute to make for success. If the foot soldier does not do his or duty with diligence, there will hardly be success at the top. Genuine or heartfelt service is the key. Just having a positive worldview is a good start. Then a good deed, no matter how small it is, is always better than none is.

The examples of quiet heroes in our world are innumerable. Don Matthew, a retired teacher, spends his time as a volunteer at a food bank and helps children who are having difficulty reading. Drs. Geoff and Eleanor Protheroe have dedicated most of their working life as physicians doing mission work in Africa. They have worked with the African Inland Mission (AIM) organization in many countries, including Kenya, helping the medically needy. Knowing what these two great doctors are doing, the inference that helping the poor is part of their heroic mission is inescapable. They are undoubtedly quiet heroes. Just like Mother Teresa, the poverty activist, they are just doing their bit to make the world a better place. After all, we are all part of the greater tapestry.

The MIT professor, Peter Serge, who coined the term heroic mission said:

The leader's purpose story is both personal and universal. It defines her or his life's work. It enables his efforts yet leaves an abiding humility that keeps him from taking his own success and failures too seriously. It brings a unique depth of meaning to his vision, a larger landscape upon which his personal dreams and goals stand out as landmarks on a longer journey. But what is most important, this story is essential to his ability to lead. It places his organization's purpose, its reason for being, within a context of where we're headed, where the `we' goes beyond the organization as a vehicle for bringing learning and change into society. This is the power of the purpose story. It provides a single integrating set of ideas that gives meaning to all aspects of the leader's work. Out of this deeper story and sense of purpose or destiny, the leader develops a unique relationship to his, or her, own personal vision. He or she becomes steward of the vision.

A heroic mission is like a compass. It guides you as it aligns your goals with your values. You could measure yourself against this standard of excellence day by day.

In Amos 7, we read about another kind of plumb line. The Lord first told Amos about a swarm of locusts and a great fire, which were pictures foretelling the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. After the prophet prayed and the Lord agreed to delay his judgment, Amos was given a vision of a straight wall. The Lord was standing by it with a plumb line. Because Israel's conduct did not square with God's laws, they experienced God's wrath.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have a plumb line by which we can evaluate our lives, that is, the word of God with its principles and commands when we are faced with moral choices. We must see what the Scriptures teach. When we follow the Lord's directives, we need not fear what his plumb line will reveal in our lives.

The most important question in life has always been, "Why live?" And, again and again, the answer has been pointed to purpose. More precisely, it has been pointed to the purpose behind the purpose. This is the societal impact that your mission has. But why live if you have no purpose? As you think about it, imagine how boring life would be. There's no dog in the hunt, so life would be very flat. There is no life without the struggle. This is what fires you up and keeps you going day by day. Without a purpose or mission, life is not worth living, and there is no direction. In that way, you just waste your energy. The heroic mission harnesses your energy for an end.

In other words, your life is focused, so effort, time, and energy are not dissipated through boredom. This inspires hope for the future because you expect the best to happen. This affects the way you see life, and it determines both your journey and the destination.

Several religious and ethnic systems can help in shaping your values. My own value system is based in part on the teachings of the Christian Bible. Because Christianity is the most familiar religious value system in North America, I will use it to explain some of the principles of leadership. The Bible makes it very clear that, if you have not loved, you have neither lived nor succeeded. It says that God is love, too, and he made us to manifest his love. To love others is to love...