Last week, we began looking at certain factors that could make leadership task daunting. Our anchor text was the book of 1 Samuel 17. It documented the account of King Saul, David and Goliath. From that story, we were considering certain factors that could make leadership task very difficult to accomplish.

 

We examined FEAR and one of the things we said about it was that fear hinders a leader from launching out and that great leaders at some point or the other in their leadership assignment had to overcome their fears. We also talked about the fact that a leader must possess a CORRECT PERCEPTION of the situation at hand and one way to do that is having a superior knowledge that would help you as the leader overcome the task. We also said that a leader must know THE CAUSE or the reason behind his or her leadership. Failure to understand this would make everything you are doing boring and somewhat difficult. And lastly, we talked about the fact that leaders have REFERENCE POINTS. Reference points are those moments in your leadership assignment where you have recorded some wins and had some progress. Those moments are usually some kind of morale boosters to overcoming the next difficult task. So, you must document your wins as a leader, not matter how little or insignificant they may appear to be.

 

So, in today’s podcast, I want to continue from where we stopped by revealing to us other factors that could make fulfilling our leadership assignment to be somewhat difficult.

 

In 1 Samuel 17 verse 38-39, see what happened: “So Saul clothed David with his armor, and he put a bronze helmet on his head; he also clothed him with a coat of mail. “David fastened his sword to his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. And David said to Saul, “I cannot walk with these, for I have not tested them.” So, David took them off.”

 

Another factor that could make leadership task daunting for you as a leader is when you don’t know what exactly works for you. As a leader, you must know what works for you per time. For example, what works for leader ‘A’ may not work for leader ‘B’ when they are faced with similar situation or task. Saul’s armor was good and perfect when it comes to Saul handling it, but not with David. As a leader, you may not succeed absolutely with your predecessor’s formular or ways of doing things. You must be able to find out what is unique to you and your leadership and stay there. Every leader has got one thing or the other that would work for them and you need to know what your own is if you are ever going to succeed while leading.

 

Another factor that could make leadership task daunting for you as a leader is lack of agenda. Agenda here talks about: plans, programs, schedules, outline; anything that would give you an overview at a glance of all that is required of you in leadership. As a leader, you need to be able to articulate your agenda. You must know what and what you want to do and achieve even before taking the position of leadership. In verse 46, David’s agenda was straightforward. He said to Goliath: “This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.”

 

Your agenda talks about the “I will” of your leadership. It gives you direction and helps you to focus on the assignment at hand. Many people just stumble into leadership positions and they struggle while at it because they fail to have a program they want to execute. David told Goliath all he was going to do with him and how he would go about doing it. Although, you may not have everything figured out yet before the leadership assignment, but you should at least have certain things already figured out. It would make the task of leading a bit easier and less complex and complicated too. So, have an agenda for your leadership assignments.

 

Lastly, be a man of your words. Be a leader that talk and do and not a leader that only talks and do nothing. In verse 46 David said to Goliath: “This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you.” And in verse 51, the Bible says: “Therefore David ran and stood over the Philistine, took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it.” David promised Goliath he was going to cut off his head and that was exactly what he did. As a leader, be a man of your words. Let your words and your actions go in tandem, don’t say what you would not do and don’t promise heaven and earth when you cannot make it happen so that your words would not become that impossible task that you are struggling to make happen.

 

I believe you have learnt something!

 

This is where we will call it a day on today’s episode of Leaderview. Please don’t forget to share this podcast with your friends, drop your comments in the comments section and let me know your thoughts on what we have shared with ourselves today. Till next time on Leaderview, stay blessed and God bless you.

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Obayomi Abiola Benjamin!

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