Understanding THE Purpose of Leadership
This write up presents the fact that followership is and should be seen as the main driving force of leadership. That is, it is followership that gives leadership its relevance.
“Leadership without Purpose is Leadership without Power”
–Adelakun Peter
Leadership has been defined as the ability to be a leader. And the ability to lead is inherent in the ability to know whom to lead. Ands knowing whom to lead is upholding the fact that there is a follower who needs a leader.
The above facts therefore, tend to present a picture indicating the connection that leadership has with followership. In other words, leadership and followership are inseprabable. They exist for one another and, understanding one is understanding the otrher. That is why Jesus said in the gospel of John 10:14 that, ” I know my own and my own know me”. We can easily deduce from the above Bible verse that “the beauty of leadership lies in the knowledge about followership”. This was the principle that Jesus followed throughout his ministerial stay on earth and it eventually made him the greatest leader of all times. Therefore, it is an undisputable fact that any leader who fails to understand followership, has never understood why he is called to be a leader. For a leader is called because of a follower.
However, at this juncture, we need to be informed that ‘THE PURPOSE OF LEADERSHIP IS FOLLOWERSHIP’. That is, leadership exists because followership exists. And it is the availability of followership that determines the availability of leadership. So, there won’t be leadership if there is no followership because, the power that leadership needs to perform lies in the understanding that followership matters a lot. It was in view of this that Saint Luke in his gospel, quoted Jesus as saying, “For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost”(Luke 19:10). This clearly shows that Jesus wouldn’t have come to the planet earth if there were no people who needed his leadersip service which was towards seeking and saving them.
Moreover, it would be interesting to note this an all important statement which states thus, ” he who fails to understand the purpose of his appointment as a leader, will surely miss the pathway to his achievement”. Many leaders today are yet to record some remarkable achievement in their leadership positions because they take for granted the purpose of their appointment. The world renown speaker, Dr Myles munroe, put it this way: ‘Leadership is the ability to help others discover their own ability and take responsibility for their ability’. Every leader is appointed for the purpose of helping others discover who they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to do in order to justify their reason for and fulfil the purpose of their existence. Nehemiah got this right! He knew that God had appointed him to lead the Jewish remnant that survived the exile with the hope of rebuilding both their worship life and the collapsed walls of Jerusalem(see Nehemiah 2:5ff). And In no time, Nehemiah became one of the greatest Bible leaders.
Finally, my dear readers, any leader who takes his followers for granted is only deviating from the path of his leadertship success. It should be understood that it is relevance in followership that brings about relevance in leadership. Therefore, the success of any leader is determined by his impact on his followers. In other words, ” Success in leadership is determined by impact on followership”( Esther 10:3).
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