The leader’s goal is not only too last, but to endure

We rightly admire things that last. We may live in a culture of instant gratification and ever – shortening attention spans, but we still know enough, to admire what endures.

This is also true when it comes to leadership. The leaders who make the biggest difference, are those with long tenure. Great impact, requires a lengthy term of leadership, and the leader who wants to make a difference, had better have thought, to stay a while. People and organisations are resistant to change, and even when it happens, it can be undone in a flash, and return to old entrenched habits of thinking and ways, can be re-enacted.

The most effective leaders, know to stay on the job, stay the course, determined, to see the task done. To reach deep into the hearts and minds of the followers, leaders had better make the commitment to endure, otherwise, your influence will disappear, about as fast as the stationery, with your name on it.
Observers of leadership, have long noted, that leaders often overestimate what can be accomplish in the short term, and underestimate what can be accomplished in the long term.

Gut – wrenching analysis, of what we accomplish and experience, should be the norm. Leadership is an endurance test that will demand the best of anyone. Leaders face countless frustrations, mind boggling complications, and pockets of resistance. Leaders make a difference, between success and failure, and leaders have to bare the burden of right decisions that sometimes hurt.

So here is the awful truth, some can fill a leadership position, but never really lead. It requires, convictional leadership that prizes endurance – the endurance of truth, truths we hold and beliefs we cherish, to take the form of convictions that frame our aspect of reality. Those who know the conviction to lead, must possess the commitment to stay, and the ability to wait.

The Enduring Leader knows: “Truth endures and so must we!”