Principle Centered Leadership II

The fundamental structure of leadership is the actual person, the leader. The character, the reputation, the thinking, values, mentors, and ethics that cover a person is the toolkit that will hold the principles that governs the way a person will lead.
Leaders lead people. Managers oversee processes that may or may not involve people. Leadership should be less about popularity and more about creating a sense of purpose, vision, value and crusade. Every great leader assembles a team whose main mission is to vary the vision, value and the crusade.
One reason why principle centered leadership is important is that if we are asking others to join a team, we should value them enough to lead a sustainable effort that will create value, purpose and accomplishment for them as well. Great leaders help others to achieve their goals and dreams while accomplishing the goals and dreams of the leader. We should never use people in order to promote ourselves. We should not be successful if our team is unsuccessful. When others are hurt or destroyed in our effort to be the 'top-dog' we are egotistical, selfish, self-centered, opportunistic and ungodly. A leader's greatest achievement is the other winners who are created on our way to success.
Principles that are universal:

1. Honest
2. Integrity
3. Morality
4. Sacrifice
5. Perseverance
6. Commitment to Personal Growth
7. Selflessness

Sometimes we are mistaken in thinking that only prominent and popular people are leaders. People like politicians, lawyers, doctors, religious icons. However, many real and successful leaders never achieve prominence in the public eye. I am thinking of the millions of good parents who each day raise children, some of their own and others their 'adopt' to go out into the world with a dream, a vision, a purpose and make a difference in their individual way. These unsung heroes, at times, sacrifice their own opportunities to allow their children to grow up in a place of safety, security, values, encouragement and positive influences. They daily exemplify honesty, integrity, selflessness, perseverance, morality so that those ever watching eyes not only hear a lecture but see a lifestyle.

I also think of the immigrant families who travel from the places of their roots in order to allow their children, nephews, nieces and cousins to have a better chance to fly a space shuttle, build a better bridge, discover the latest renewable fuel, write the next universal story.

These are real leaders whose influence and path to success birth generations of leaders who now lead backwards and forwards: they pull others up because of their sacrificial steps and pushing others forward because of the new leaders they help create.