Leadership begins, when you learn to think like a leader, and leadership is not achieved, until followers learn to think as well.

Leadership is an intellectual activity, and whilst it is important to point out that activity is the essence of leadership, activity is the result of thinking, and where the eventual seeds of success or failure are sown. In fact, be sure, the quality of your actions, will not exceed the quality of your thinking, and careful attention to thinking, is what sets leaders apart.

Leaders must think strategically, critically, and consistently, moving from thought to thought, questioning, analysing and reflecting, on their decisions. Whilst leaders, like everyone else, operate out of capacities such as instinct, intuition and habit, what sets leaders apart, is the commitment, to bring these things under the control of active intellect, and right patterns of thinking. In truth, the inner voice is the achievement of devoted thinking, not a gift that simply falls into the leader’s lap.

“Hunches “are actually products of years of learning and thinking, and the idea that the leader is some kind of mystical guru or shaman, is unhealthy and unworkable, especially over time. In other words, the leader leads out of conviction. Human thought is sequential, and our minds move from one observation to another, from one fact to the next, so disciplined thought, requires the leader to think clearly about how things connect, and how reality is to be analysed.

Therefore, The leader who faces facts, leans into truth, applies the right principles, and acknowledges the alternatives, will then be ready, to make a decision, the right decision, a convictional decision!