Leadership is Influence

People are first influenced by what they see. If you have children, then you've probably observed this. No matter what you tell your children to do, their natural inclination is to follow what they see you doing. For most people, if they perceive that you are positive and trustworthy and have admirable qualities, then they will seek you as an influencer in their lives.

When you meet people who don't know you, at first you have no influence with them at all. If someone they trust introduces you to them, then you can temporarily "borrow" some of their influence. But as soon as they have some time to observe you, you either build or bust that influence by your actions.

From Becoming a Person of Influence by John Maxwell and Jim Dornan

To lead is to serve,

Coach Carolyn

Leadership is Influence

Welcome to the blog of the Women's Spiritual Life and Leadership Institute. I am so pleased to be able to serve you the readers and leaders in the community. It is my prayer that you will return here often to be equipped, empowered, encouraged, and edified in your journey to being more effective leaders and communicators as you build strong and lasting relationships in all areas of your life.

To begin, I have been teaching and coaching leadership for several years now and I want to share my absolute favorite definition of leadership. My leadership guru is Dr. John C. Maxwell and I will be sharing his wisdom here quite often. He says, "Leadership is influence -- nothing more, nothing less." This is it in a nutshell, as they say. This will be the foundation of this site and its mission.

Everyone influences someone. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do for a living. If your life connects in someway with someone else's, then you have the opportunity to influence. Wikipedia defines influence as the ability to indirectly control or affect the actions of other people or things.

Think about this: Mohandas Gandhi was an influencer, but so was Adolph Hitler. The question is what kind of influence are you having? Are you influencing positively or negatively? What is your life saying about you to those you are in relationship with? To those you merely come in contact with? Does your life and your actions match up? Do you say one thing and do something else? What kind of attitude do you show to the world?

We will explore these issues in this space. If your relationships totally suck, think about what you are bringing to the party!

To lead is to serve...
Coach Carolyn