Be a Visionary Leader

When I was 23 I met a young man by the name of Brad Duncan. He was full of life, dreams and ambition. I worked very hard to earn his respect love and trust and I can honestly say he has been the most influential person in my life. In the early days of our development he taught me to really let go of any restraints on the size of my dreams. He was clearly a great leader and I bought into his vision for life. I would like to share with you what he taught me.

We started off with taking the time to really identify a clear picture of exactly how I wanted to live. He encouraged me to think out as far and wide as I could. My dreams included children that I didn’t have yet, in laws that I have since lost and ministries that now touch children all over the world. It is amazing now to look back after so many years and realize how powerful that broad scope of thinking really was. Secondly Brad then helped me share this vision with thousands of people around the world that have joined in on this cause to live a life of significance. We have been able to reach over a million people now all over the world. We have shared stages with hundreds of thousands of people, made recordings of messages in 7 different languages and now share this blog with over 40,000 of you. To make a vision come to life clearly you have to inspire other people to join in on your quest. Finally he helped me structure a work habit of passionate calm persistence. That may sound like a oxymoron but it is like the swan going across the water. Calm on the top but with the feet paddling like crazy underneath while maintaining a complete focus on finishing the mission. All three qualities of equal importance! Ever watch Jordan in the final 30 seconds of the game, or John Elway in a 4^th quarter two minute drill or even catch an old recording of Muhamad Ali? Each of these athletes stayed totally calm with a fire burning inside at an extreme level and only one thought on their mind.

All great leaders, including you, need to develop this inner strength in order to make great impact. After you have developed these characteristics and accomplished your goals the second challenge arises. Learning to never abuse your power and genuinely motivate people instead of manipulate people becomes the real test of life. There are many ways to crash as a leader but the top three that I have seen seem to be the most difficult to avoid. First of all learning to restore people instead of destroying people. When you are in a position of leadership it is easy to forget how difficult life can be. It is easy to sit on our self appointed throne of judgment and discard people instead of the time consuming and transparent efforts it takes to restore people that struggle in life. We must always remember that the only reason we have ever been able to accomplish anything is because of Gods blessings and these very people. A second common tripping point for leaders is to lead people into confusion instead of leading them into a cause. When we reach our personal milestones we can forget that others are still in the middle of their climb. We can become consumed with wanting to maintain what we have instead of being committed to learning and growing and changing in order to help the people around us achieve their dreams as well. Preservation vs. growth becomes the battle. We spend all of our time teaching what we did, instead of continuing to evolve and develop new methods for helping the next generation of leaders. This typically leads into the third point of failure, which is the distortion of justice versus the upholding of justice for the common man. John Maxwell goes into great detail on these topics is several of his books. We can easily slip into manipulation over motivation. We begin to distort the truth to preserve our own little empires. Some even abuse the Word of God in order to keep people in fear and under control. Manipulation means moving people for the advantage of the leader while motivation means moving together for mutual advantage.

Be committed to never forget the common man and his battles in life. Be humble in your approach to servant leadership. See it in your mind, say it to everyone, show people the way and never forget where you came from! We all have so much to do, so lets all serve, love and lead with grace, humility and compassion.