Elvis C. Umez

INFLUENCING YOUR LEADERS In the previous essay I discussed on some of the classifications of the leaders and added that today I shall begin a discourse on the dynamics of influencing the leaders by the pioneer leader, which I find very interesting. The most difficult people to lead are leaders but on the long run, leading them produces great results with a lot of friction, which is associated with the pioneer leaders’ inability to understand the dynamics of influence with them. However, leaders in their nature are mainly driven towards results as their basic motivation for followership. Put in other words, leaders will easily follow the pioneer leader because he or she produces result at every given time. Yet each of these leaders will be uniquely influence according to their personality dimension, and for the pioneer leader to be able to influence them, he/she must focus on understanding their points of influence, which I explained in the previous essays about the points of inf...

THE EXPLANATION OF THE LEADERS’ CLASSIFICATIONS The focus of today’s discourse is on the explanation of some the outlined classifications made in the just previous essay. I am going to do this using an analogy we all are conversant with, which is “do not give me fish, rather teach me how to fish” to explain the principles associated with some of these leaders being classified. Let us assume that the leader owns a fish pond and his leadership purpose is to provide fresh fish to the members of the society at their steps. Here are possible things he could choose to do: To the Followers If he chooses to give people fish, he will end up having perpetual followers who are satisfactorily dependent on him. To the Disciples If he chooses to teach the people that follow him how to fish, he will end having perpetual workers who would rather go on strike for a pay raise or look for another fish pond owner to continue the same work. To the Collaborators If he chooses ...

CLASSIFICATION OF THE LEADER BASED ON LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE PREDICATORS In the just previous essay I started a discourse on the classification of the leader and focused mainly the predicators, which I referred as Design and Purpose. Also, I established that you cannot know “why” until you have a clear understanding of “what”, meaning that understanding your design precedes the purpose. However, today, I am going to go straight ahead and lay the classifications as we see leaders from the eyes of the School of Leadership Development. They are as follows: A. Based on Influence The way leaders influence the followers: Leaders who provide Short term needs Leaders who provide Long term needs The way leaders influence the disciples: Leaders with Apparent evidence Leaders with Real evidence The way leaders influence the collaborators: Synthetic purposeful leaders Authentic purposeful leaders The way leaders influence the Leaders: Short term result oriente...

LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE | THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE LEADER In the just previous essay, I began a discourse on the leader who has been transformed from being a collaborator by a superior leader in the cycle of leadership, and defined him/her to be one who has discovered his/her design and purpose, equipped in the direction of leadership by another leader, and is ready to take him/herself, as well as others, in direction of actualizing the intended result. But today, I will begin a discourse on the classification of the leader starting by establishing the predicators of the classification. Who you become as a leader is largely influenced by your understanding of your leadership design and purpose, which according to this essay will be seen as the predicators for the classification of the leader. Put in other words, the fundamental questions that every leader must have asked and gotten the right answers, while going through transformation in the cycle of leadership, are: “What Am ...

LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE | THE LEADER In the leadership cycle, there are four stages, which are the followers, disciples, collaborators, and leaders. These four stages are progressive as the individual who enters into the cycle must be transformed by the leaders from stage 1 to 4. In the previous essays I explained the dynamics of influence as the leader seeks to transform the persons he or she is leading, starting from the follower up to the collaborator. Today, I shall begin a discourse on the last stage which is the leader. The significant marker or indicator of the collaborator is the discovery of leadership purpose and design, as I have explained in the previous essays. The implication is that without the discovery of purpose and design the individual would not progress from being a collaborator to another stage, the leader, which forms the focus of this essay. If the collaborator did not discover the authentic purpose for the leadership, he or she is bound to synthesize one in ...

DYNAMICS OF INFLUENCING YOUR COLLABORATORS In the just previous essay I pointed out the three major right attitudes the leader must have in his or her bid to influence the collaborators, which are: he or she must always come up with superior argument, be grounded in wisdom and knowledge, and be proactive in proffering solutions that make problems go away. However, today, I am going to be discussing the dynamics of influencing the collaborators and the point of influence associated with them in the progressive transformation of the cycle of leadership. In the cycle of leadership, the leader is given a goal to transform followers who got attracted to them by the leadership vision into becoming disciples who by a series of teaching learning of the principles that make for good leadership are transformed into collaborators who have eventually discovered their leadership purpose and are willing to either sustain the work being done by the leader or are launched out as leaders in order to ...

INFLUENCING YOUR COLLABORATORS In the just previous essay I discussed about the collaborators with respect to leadership and influence as the leader is required to understand why they often act the way they do. Also, I explained that a collaborator is the young in the leadership cycle by virtue of exposure and experience with relatively good information about dynamics of how principles work in real time almost seems to operate from the same level of information with the leaders but lacks experiential knowledge. This definition is basic for the leader whose goal is to succeed in leadership. Today, I shall be endeavoring to look at the right attitude the lead should have towards these collaborators, which I will discuss in three headings. However, before I do that, there is need to point out that many of the difficulties leaders face with collaborators is predicated upon poor discipleship work, which will be the thrust of the next essay. Superior Arguments Based on experiential knowl...

LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE | THE COLLABORATOR In the previous essays I established that in the cycle of leadership that there are four stages, which begins with the follower, and after that comes the disciple, collaborator and then the leader. I also defined who a follower and disciple are by virtue of their stage in the cycle of leadership. Today’s essay will focus of telling a few things about the collaborators and how the leader should approach them in order to actualize the leadership purpose. Collaborators are the young in the leadership cycle by virtue of their exposure and experience with the good information about dynamics of how principles work in real time. They almost have the same level of information with the leaders but are only lacking in experience. They are acquainted with information of how things should be done, even better, but have never tried them out. They are the journey men of every organization, association or institution, and are always willing to work a...

THE DYNAMICS OF INFLUENCING YOUR DISCIPLES In the previous essay, I discussed the dynamics associated with influencing your disciples according to the designs, and promised to begin a discourse on the collaborators, but while I continued to consider that discourse, I realized that there were a few things that I left out that are very important for the leader to be armed with in influencing his or her disciples that I will devote my time in explaining in today’s essay. If you have been following these essays accordingly, you will realize a common trend with leadership and influence that is common to both the followers and the disciples, which is their personality dimension and temperament that explains the reason why they act the way they do uniquely. The focus in this essay will be to explain the points of influence of the disciples that the leader should be properly aware of if he or she will eventual succeed in transiting them to the next level according to the leadership purp...

THE DYNAMICS OF INFLUENCING YOUR DISCIPLES ACCORDING TO THEIR DESIGNS In the previous essay, I discussed influencing your disciples, and to do that effectively, the leader must understand the individual designs of the disciples. Their design I mean here is the why they act and respond to things the way they uniquely do both as individuals or a group. The truth is that you can never influence your disciples if you only see them through your own eyes and not theirs. The rest of this essay will endeavor to discuss in a concise manner the dynamics associated with influencing your disciples according to their designs. Before the leader begins the process of leading the disciples, he or she must come to the knowledge of the personality dimensions of the individual disciples, because every individual has specific but similar inherent abilities that predispose them to agree or disagree in following instructions that result into their transformation in leadership. In my previous essays, I exp...

INFLUENCING YOUR DISCIPLES In the previous essay, I was able to explain who a disciple is and said that he or she is a child or apprentice or protégé who needs his or her innate abilities (in the form of potentials) to be awakened through exposure to life’s experiences, anchored by a trusted leader, targeted at causing growth and development, on the long run, for solving problems and taking responsibilities in the society. Today, I shall endeavor to discuss how the leader can be able to influence his or her disciples without having to manipulate them. However, there is need to point out that the activities of the leader with the disciples center around teaching learning process. The leader must understand that the disciples respond to teaching learning process based on their unique designs, which requires a differential approach so that it does appear some are brighter than the other. Leadership and Influence with respect to teaching the disciples the things the leade...

LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE | THE DISCIPLE In my previous essays I established that in the cycle of leadership that there are four stages, which begins with the follower, and after that comes the disciple, collaborator and then the leader. In the subsequent essays, I shall continue to x-ray each of these stages with the intent of explaining in a concise manner the responsibilities of the leader and how they can be influenced in order to produce the intended results according to the leadership purpose. There is need that I say at this point that these stages are not necessarily associated with physical age as the case may be, rather they are concerned with the experiential knowledge that makes an individual able to discover purpose and fulfill it within time and space, which requires that he or she is exposed to the environment that affords such knowledge, and leadership being one of those. A follower, who is a babe, does not have experiential knowledge associated with leadership, and th...

INFLUENCING YOUR FOLLOWERS | TWO KINDS OF FOLLOWERS In my previous essay, I discussed influencing your followers and promised to further look at the two kinds of followers that every leader will encounter in the cycle of leadership. Today, I am going to begin a work based on that promise. There are two kinds of followers in leadership. Remember that I had said that a follower is a neophyte who enters the cycle of leadership because he or she needs to be inspired  and raised to grow in the direction of an intended purpose in order to be transformed into his or her ideal self to eventually become a leader. Being a neophyte in this sense is not necessarily a function of age, in principle, but a state where the individual is new in the terrain of leadership. These kinds of followers include: 1. Adult followers 2. Non-adult followers Adult followers These are followers who have already determined a path for their lives before realizing that they have to make a U-turn in the righ...

INFLUENCING YOUR FOLLOWERS | THE DYNAMICS OF INFLUENCE Yesterday, I discussed the two kinds of followers that every leadership will encounter in the cycle of leadership with their corresponding observable characteristics to help identify them and I promised to discuss the dynamics of influence with respect to the followers. Today, I am going to make the deliberate effort to explain the dynamics of influence associated with the follower in the cycle of leadership and why their responses to following leaders are somewhat selective and often times idiosyncratic. Having established in the previous essays that each of us influence and are also influenced uniquely, and yesterday, I also laid out the three points of influence, which I will further consider to be gates that are contingent upon temperament and personality dimensions that make us vulnerable to the people that lead us or we lead, which are spiritual, intellectual, and physical gates that also correspond to three realms of life....

INFLUENCING YOUR FOLLOWERS In my previous essays I explained that a follower is a neophyte who enters the cycle of leadership because he or she needs to be inspired  and raised to grow in the direction of an intended purpose in order to be transformed into his or her ideal self to eventually become a leader. Also, I further explained that there are four stages in the leadership cycle that the leader has the singular responsibility of ensuring that the people being led complete their rounds in the cycle. The four stages are the: Follower, Disciple, Collaborator and Leader. Each of these stages is characterized by liminal phases and observable indicators or traits for each individual in the leadership cycle. The focus of this essay is to establish how the followers can be influenced in the direction of achieving the intended result needed, which lies solely on the leader’s dexterity in understanding the dynamics of human personality and relationship with the articulation of v...