Chapter

1
The Importance of Leadership

D. Quinn Mills Leadership How to Lead, How to Live
© 2005 D. Quinn Mills. All Rights Reserved.

Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live

Few things are more important to human activity than leadership. Effective leadership helps our nation through times of peril. It makes a business organization successful. It enables a not-for-profit organization to fulfill its mission. The effective leadership of parents enables children to grow strong and healthy and become productive adults. The absence of leadership is equally dramatic in its effects. Without leadership, organizations move too slowly, stagnate, and lose their way. Much of the literature about organizations stresses decision-making and
With confidence that you, good readers of this book, will put leadership to noble ends, we go forward. The Work of the Leader Taking a leadership position means several things: A leader must have a vision of the future for the organization and its members.

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Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1-1 TAKING A LEADERSHIP POSITION Taking a leadership position means: • • Having a vision about what can be accomplished. Making a commitment to the mission and to the people you lead. Taking responsibility for the accomplishment of the mission and the welfare of those you lead. Assuming risk of loss and failure. Accepting recognition for success.

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A leader must be able to express his or her vision clearly and in a compelling manner so that others are engaged by it. (See Executive Summary 1-1.) A leader has to make a commitment to his or her vision, to the organization, and to the members of the organization. A leader can’t be committed one day and uninterested the next. People will judge a leader by his or her commitment, and will commit themselves no more than the leader does. A leader assumes a considerable amount of responsibility— not just for the mission that he or she urges others to accept, nor just for the organization he or she heads, but for his or her followers, their lives and efforts, as well.

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The Importance of Leadership

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