Five Key Leadership Insights

Inspiration from the Top by Zig Ziglar

We are all leaders. Whether we lead a major corporation, a business unit, a project, a little league team, a family, a personal ministry, or merely ourselves, we lead. Accept it or not, others look to us as we blaze our trail toward the horizon.

The challenges of leadership positions large or small cannot be overstated but they can be simplified. Zig Ziglar is spending a lifetime doing just that. As one of the preeminent experts on leadership and motivation, he has expanded our understanding on what it means to grow beyond ourselves and fulfill our potential. He gathered some of the quotes holding the most meaning to him in a collection entitled Inspiration from the Top. Here are a few to help us define our role as leaders.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. ~ John Quincy Adams.

Leadership is not found in position or title. Neither is it found in proclamations or commands. Leadership is found instead in the example we each daily model. Our attitude sets the tone, either attracting others or repelling them. Leaders demonstrate creativity, determination, and ingenuity as they strive to make the world better.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. ~ General George S. Patton.

The people around you have lived thousands of unique experiences. They hold knowledge, training, and passions different, and greater, than anything you could imagine. Don’t stifle that reservoir of potential solutions. Let them know what you are trying to achieve or where you are trying to go. Then step out of the way and allow their collective genius figure out how to make it happen.

People were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness. ~ Zig Ziglar.

Nobody wakes up in the morning with the desire to completely fail during the day. We all want to succeed at what we do. This is how we are programmed. It is hardwired into us and is beyond our control. The key for a leader is to make sure to define success in such a way as to allow each person to achieve his or her own greatness.

You can have total success when you balance your physical, mental, and spiritual as well as your personal, family, and business. ~ Zig Ziglar.

A leader understands the importance of all aspects of life, professional and personal, spiritual and physical, work and play. A top must be equally weighted to properly spin. A building must consist of an adequate foundation, walls, and roof in order to stand. So, too, a person must spend time away from the direct pursuit of a specific achievement to focus on other areas of life. Only then will true success be enjoyed. Remember to help your people achieve a holistic focus.

If we truly love people, we will desire for them far more than it is within our power to give them, and this will lead us to prayer. ~ Richard J. Foster.

We each want the best for our sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, and friends and families. Leaders also want this for their coworkers, subordinates, and peers. We know by sacrificially supporting others we will propel their lives forward. This will ensure their growth while at the same time build toward the success of our project or personal ministry. There are limits, however, in the amount of resources we can personally give. For this reason every strong leader must inevitably rely on the one source of unlimited gifts and blessings; the source that can only be reached through sincere prayer.

Each of us leads in one manner or another. There are basic tenants of leadership to help us along the way. Zig Ziglar provides expert leadership insights in his book Inspiration from the Top. The pages will challenge you to find your own five key leadership insights.