[Modern day leader]

Gone are the days of setting examples, modern day leaders are the example, they are an extension of their brand. The personal brand they are is mated to the corporate brand they represent. The staff live by the brand ethos, they too are ambassadors at their entry point. They too are leaders as they lead the stakeholders of the brand. Leadership is now in executive level, frontline management level and at key entry level.

If as an executive leader you fail to instill such behavioral thinking, know that you're out of sync with today's work environment. The shift is caused by competition of anchoring or mainstaying between man and robotics brought by the  4IR chapter. If you don't own your position, a robot will replace you. People are no longer satisfied by human experience alone, but rather by the aura of your workspace. Truth is, trust me, the face of leadership is still wearing a mask and once it's off, the transformation wave coming will awash all industries.

Fact is, it's no longer the managers who need to understand the inner workings of a business, but so is the entry level staffers. Those who get onto the wagon now will be the mainstayers as they'll be in tune with the strategy and informable about impediments to their earning dynamics. Those are the dream of any executive leader. Being a leader in these times a challenge that pokes at creative juices. Should you fail to make and keep them flowing are then in trouble as you'll be on your way out of business.

In conclusion: knowledgeable staff make for easy and quicker implementation of ideas and strategies, so is quicker their rise of income. Being informed translates to their increase in value that means a rise in wage bill to the employer, but that's better than a deadwooder demanding more than their worth...dp

[Being a leader]

'A great leader is led, and a good leader leads' [1]. I sometimes wonder if it takes a leader or a follower to make a success of a dream. This again can be questioned about labourers and shareholders, on who is more important when it comes to the company valuation. There's balance in value, but nothing is surely equal.

What we fail to recognize at times is that the vision bearers and executives are leaders who are drivers of market trends that are but in answering to your calls of challenge. They'd be creative with solutions to that identified challenge as a gap of opportunity. A company may be the best seller of a specific product, but that comes after conducting both feasibility and viability study; a research based on a possible solution for your problem or challenge. Only a qualitative leader will know and direct the stakeholders on the company's move as per the results, timing and placement of the product. What's big and difficult about leadership is decision making and taking.

Leaders are bold and daring, and that are the requirements above all. The hardest thing to do in leadership is doing the right thing even in the absence of everyone. Being a leader is a builder and a breaker of character in that if you go in before your time can break you if aren't the type that adapts and pace to the rhythm of any industry's pulse, but a builder if aren't that breakable type. One myth that terrified a lot about leading is that you have to be fast but that's not true. You need to be quick in sight, thought and judgement, but not in action all the time. The aim is less retakes for a solid repute.

A leader knows what to say and when to say it to whomever they say it to, as you may win or lose favour by how you say it. I remember one investor telling someone that: "if only I could switch you for someone else for your idea and business, but unfortunately I can't, as such I won't invest on your self-doubt". A leader should learn the art of conversing, not marketing as is heard mostly. Knowing how to say who and what you are, what you do and whom you do it for, that's it. Not everyone can sell, but anyone can tell people about themselves and what they do. With leadership, it's about knowing your strengths and playing to them in make up for your weaknesses. It's not simple as ABC but doable in 123 steps and once mastered, the feeling inexplicable.

In conclusion: being a leader is easy if you are the material. Success is attached to the type that attracts it. The baddest challenge with leadership is power, it seduces the gentle soul and reminds it how achieved it is, and that's the trip tat for many successful leaders. Should you be strong enough to suppress that, then you're well on top of your enemy heads and walking allover them. Leadership is a fight, success is a struggle, you just need to be who you are for what you are...

[1] by KgeleLeso

[Success a curse]

Success, the quickest route to isolation, the force that attracts scum, the easy blinder of the weak, and the worst attention bringer to enemies. Unlike power, it gives you no peace as everybody wants themselves attached to you. What is dangerous as a combination to it is kindheartedness, which is the shortest route to your fall. Success is not stable, is not a sustainable phenomena sans power.

If you want success, you ought to garner power so you can attain the state of deity. There's no sleep with success as there's always this and that about relevancy, being the first, maintaining your position, retaining consumerbase, knowing what's latest in business and news locally, nationally and internationally, learning something new all the time, who to trust and who cut, forever analyzing what's being said, and guarding against and fighting entrants with all you can, etc, to remain in the game. Success is tiring, those of you wanting in on the piece of action should know that. If you want to venture into business with thoughts of easy money just forget 'cause it seems easy in the beginning and all changes the day you employ someone, especially one close to you that you'll come back sobbing.

With success comes too much backstabbings. In business there's no permanent friend and no permanent enemy and the irony of it is that even your enemy needs you in longer so they keep pushing and benchmarking through you in their quest for competitiveness. A good enemy in business is an arch rival not a crusher. Success many a times makes you a target of invisible forces that you have to know and infiltrate in order to fight back. It's a constant uphill struggle.

A lot got in as softies but today are toughies by force. One thing I've learned over the years about business is that it carves you no matter how rigid you may want to remain, but circumstances won't stop challenging your resistance until you give in to it. From outside everyone wish they were you, and should they only get a taste of what you feel, they won't return.

In conclusion: it is always easier to manage it if with a partner that got your back 101%, not with 10 partners who'll give you 15s and 30s of their support and 60 to 80% be fighting you on almost every move and decision you take. The biggest challenge about success is growth. If you failed to develop your entity's growth plan after your idea plan and company policy, you're doomed. Success is planned and controlled via certain specific channels that are modeled. Don't be somehow lucky, no,,,,work on your business from outside but spacing it in. SUCCESS, good a feeling as it may, still but a curse...dp

[Recapped dreams]

We all live with them yet hard to achieve, and if gets broken, a shutter of peace, happiness, confidence, and hope. Dreams are ever big, but needs us to be realistic about what they want for them to be achievable. If we don't then are of no use to us.

Everybody has theirs, and not everyone is living theirs, and most hanging on to them in escape from reality. Broken dreams results in hope deferred; a sorry state that a lot of us are residing in. Saying that means one has given up on their dreams. Question is: how come do we fail? Is it that we failed our dreams or be that we failed in our dreams?

I believe that we at times fail to realize our dreams because we don't support them. Also, we fail to achieve our dreams because we don't align them with our purpose. If we can be able to deflate our dreams maybe we will see where we went wrong. How many of us live our wishes? Thing is, if you don't live your aspired life, you kick your chances away. If you dream of being a pharmacist, hang around pharmacists and places where they are related to pharmacy. Being close to your dream is important, even if not allow you to live it, can still be close to it and that a push of your passion. That also helps in knowing your entry points into your dream.

There's a thrill in chase but that shouldn't make part of your aspirational mix. What you want to be should be easy to spot by those close to you. Sometimes they help us in reaching them if time still allows. To be honest, dreams in many cases are age based and should we fail to accomplish them within a specific time then it's over with them, and once one reach that stage find self with no point of going forth. To avoid such feelings, don't have dreams that are rigid, flexify them.

Truth is, it remains our onus to be working on our dreams and ourselves so we be good for our aspirations. It is pointless to work on the other sans working on the other. Being good for our dreams and aspirations makes us ready for the opportunity that they seek for our success. So, if be ready only on one side and the opportunity presents itself and find that you still lack on the other side, it be that it's a pass. Know what your dream and aspiration entail and work hard at ensuring you meet their requirements of your making of them. Some dreams requires you to go to school for their realization, some have to undergo training for them, some have to be the material so you qualify them, some needing just your capital alone to make them happen, but whatever they're, seeking one to meet the requirements.

Some dreams can be put on hold and be revisited later on while in the case of others once put on hold never to be achieved due to dynamics roled in them. As such, never have one dream, give it an alternative. For example, have an early age dream and an after that dream. Some dreams are not dreamed before a certain age while some have been from an early age. We just but need to have dreams that drives our will to wake up and go out.

In conclusion: success at something not a fulfillment if not of your dream and aspiration, for you keep going back to it, and the danger about it is its impact on your unfound happiness. Be where your passion lies and your potential will shine. And, how does it feel in your dream? Will achieving it make you attain full happiness that is true or real? True happiness is within (responsive) and real happiness is on the outside (reactive), but all brought by achievement and success. The difference is in how we feel and respond or react to the result.

But then again, at times recapping our dreams a soul killing factor in that if you failed to evolve so is your dream, and nothing stays still, hence the call to flexify. Pushing for your dream for a long time tires the soul and should cons spot that will put you to your early retirement as they'll use it against you. Recapped dreams a vulnerability that seek your personal security else an early grave potential case. When you recap your dream, go back in on another level above the initial one and resurrect your initio via a younger version of your then. That may be your sure recaptured glory you longed for. The defining factor is achievement, and on age and how,,,so irrelevant...dp

[Know to declare your kind]

To know what type the tree is, we dig for its roots, that's then we'll tell its type is tap root or adventitious. Today I was in another session with my TEAM and was almost brought to half hearing my partner say he now knew my kind. I was perplexed and worried in the same breath: none has ever said that to me aloud in a group before. Was I stressed? No. Why? Because I've known his kind already anyway. So!! There's no harm.

Any person has their kind, and how you get into knowing them a journey of discovery you'll be in for, for a person is an exploration on their own. To each one's action or utter there's a reason as we think, and but what if at times there ain't any by chance? Who's supposed to know that?

A person is something else, and I often wonder how I get to tap into many people's kind sans them realizing it. How long you take inside always depends on their kind. Other people are shallow while others are deep. In some you'll be set on an adrift flow while in others adventively and, in a few pulled in instantly. Not many people are non-complex, but with this partner you find that, and that's the kind he is, though not ready yet to roll out the scroll on him any decade soon.

The challenge with me is I am his type, not his kind and that's why we gel the way we do. One thing that is tough for me to do is let my guard down that easily around people, and that's why a lot fail to be spot on because I control the facade. One thing he has to notice is that he's rooted and I'm grounded, hence he ended up unearthing that element sans flaw. For me being around him doesn't allow me freedom; with him it gives me freedom of being. He's one of only six people whom I'm vulnerable around, and that's how much he means to me.

Many a time I commit a series of errors in his presence and somehow feel no wrong and pain as the aura materially a form of conformity he exudes, I swear he's the candidate perfect for one's eulogy, hahaha.

In conclusion: in a TEAM we have many voices. Be it a voice of reason, or of authority, of dare, of hope, of unity, of innocence, of nullity, or of scorn, etc, a myriad to dig (wonder where mine fits in). Being the type of voice you are gives a synoptic window of that kind you are, and we sell ourselves through that powerful possession after the precious gift God gave to us (life), and that is the voice (after mind). What we utter is very important in that others only have the first voice (innate) whilst me and you are blessed with the second voice. Through this instrument we declare our kind before we act it out. But then, do I know to declare my kind? Only you can tell, if only you know to...dp

[Delay a bless for opportune]

'A delay can be another way of getting there quicker' [1]. We curse this opportunity because we lack the vision to see beyond through it. A delay is a bless for opportune, everyone in experience of it should have the wisdom to play to theirs.

Also, 'delay is privacy power because what people don't see won't know to ruin. Keep well in that power' [2]. Delay is a privilege that needs us to see for what it brings to us. A lot of beautiful results emerged out of it and find that could it been earlier wouldn't have made the impact it caused at that time. We should embrace delay and look at it through a brand new set of spectacle lens.

Delay in it lies a chance of self-refinement, re-versioning of one's vision, selling most to self what's readied to sell more to others, and humbling oneself with the armory of patience, for in it lessons could be learnt like trusting in fate to deliver you to your desired outcome, allowing process and time to work on other things you may not have time for during fruition of your vision. It is a gap in leap to be seized.

In conclusion: the power of delay is hidden, and those who devote their time during it gets to reap endlessly the rewards the duration has prepared them for. It's not a secret that it drains you but it won't frustrate if you are busy with the course of betterment in oneself. Once you channel your viewing of each circumstance, then shall it be your first gain in delay; the growth of you. Delay is your solid base for foundation of bigger things to build up, and the setback purpose of it is far greater than you may wish for, should you hang in there with focus because nothing surprises a determined visionary. Be a leader you are for it's in you if purposely designed by delay, and but not for delay...dp

[1] by Mahlatse 'Sojourner' Modise.

[2] by Boitumelo Madisha.

[Fame over worth]

There's nothing easy as fame. Fame can be found in anything and any space you choose to find it, and but value out of anything and any space not a possibility. I learned not so long ago that 'fame is a lie in your value and a truth to your worth' [1]. To this day, I don't know what to make of this proclamation though the speaker sounded dead sure about it.

What one ought to harbor is worth, for it's got value. True self sustenance results from value; how you carry yourself, say of others and treat others, how you sell what you are, etc, are what gives you worth. But then, if you value popularity before anything else the results will give back same. It doesn't say that fame contains no worth; no. What matters will be what you do with your popularity and how it came about. Let's but agree that some cases and forms of popularity are useless in that their effects deal with you the subject of popularity after it then became notoriety.

Value is an innate feature that we're born with that over time we need to activate as we grow. It being in us not translating to it easily showing. Value gets built over time and used in time to put us where we hope to be with worth. The best way to start is with self; respect, love, honesty, passion, help, teach, learn, and impartiality, then once those reach maturity in us will we be able to share our value that'll be subjected to scrutiny by others whom we encounter and engage with in our journey of life.

Fame is dangerous as it's a modern form of enslavement to choice. It can be readily given to you if you sign up for it, and get them gaining from the value of their investment in you that you the pinned subject can't gain from, yet be told your worth that at times be published and only to leave you keeping up with the status put on you albeit with nothing lined to your pocket. Fame is an empty shell, and what you give out the value that we weigh you with and but sadly be that you don't earn from that, a case with many famous people. This though happening to those who choose fame over their worth. The greatest wisdom in modern business is knowing your worth, that's how you'll be good in selling your value. You need to strike a balance of input to output, your fame must equate to your worth.

In conclusion: this article was the first one I found difficult to write and but, felt obliged to continue with it and publish it regardless. It was because I were driven by what I too don't understand and wishing you help me get it right. The words "fame is a lie in your value and a truth to your worth" got to me in a way not a lot saw when uttered. I asked two crony writers separately and their definitions still not strikingly spot on to rock my soul. If you happen to get it, do feel free to unearth its hidden meaning for us to uncover its ambiguity...dp

[1] by Kgele Leso

[Inspirational message]

https://www.facebook.com/1109842629028447/posts/3327378657274822/

[The bigger picture]

If they don't see the bigger picture, be that bigger picture. The one thing that people should be focused on in others, is the good that they are and what that good can do for them. If we do that we'll be well on our way to seeing the bigger picture.

If you check in many townships and neighborhoods you'll find that there's this particular person who takes their time on something to empower others yet be it that they don't get support from anyone. What we do instead, be that we talk them down. The good they do goes unmentioned in a good way though noticed. Good deeds are dying because good doers are being disrespected and discouraged by us whom our very own are receiving help and upliftment from those carers. The same could be said about CSR programs.

Companies that flash their big budgets on CSI gets more mentions and media attention than those focusing on CSR. Though they're all Corporate Social Initiatives, they however don't apply same in execution, hence the other celebrated more than the other. The sad part though, being the fact that ordinary citizens not aware and dare to care how they differ. The moral fiber of nations got eroded by capitalistic teachings that are designed to make them behave just that way, carefree.

People are now looking at what they gain more than what they benefit. If entity A goes out to assist in old age homes on particular days per week without giving out a cent to the homes and entity B identifies a rugby and an athletic team to donate branded kits for, nobody will be interested in mentioning entity A because it's not out there, glamorous and visible, while entity B will get the glory.

Those who do good sans fanfare never  get the mentions unlike those who do with fanfare. This not saying it ain't good doing good sans fanfare (we need to get that straight). Truth is, even if you do get the mention, it's mostly as though an afterthought or in passing. But then, the question is: is CSR for poor companies and CSI for moneyed ones?

In conclusion: Corporate Social Investment vs Corporate Social Responsibility, which is better for anyone's business? I mean, with CSI you are donating monetarily and while with CSR you devote your time and energy. But one wise and experienced executive once told me it's advisable to employ both models in your company's CSI program, for with CSR it's more of a heart to heart exercise and with CSI a PR strategy on its own. They all give an entity good repute that but is not same, though he said you best do more on the CSR because what a person takes to heart is deeper and rooted in thought than what you enjoy for now and passes with time. He compared them with an advertisement on print to the one on television. Since then, I never looked back, and what about you after reading this? Do you see the bigger picture or should I be your bigger picture? It's up to you...dp

[Pressure for a good cause]

How does feeling pressured feel? This is what others feel every day. But above all, the lesson is; 'Never leave the force of your habit in the hands of someone, for its soul a dream you alone can commit to, because its achievement not your success' [1]. 'Don't let people make you do with them what ain't needing them in' [2]. You need to learn how to control your achievements. First, limit access by ambitious heads in your build-up.

I say this because in the life of a businessperson there's a lot going on that if you're not the part won't understand and but wrongfully conclude on. As a driver I know how pressured one feel when are about to pass someone sans giving them a lift, yet going the same direction. What's painful is the conclusion made about me for not stopping and letting you jump in.

Ever thought of the route the person is going to take even though going there? Ever thought of the calls that he'll be making en route that doesn't need your ear? Ever thought of what she's carrying in her car that doesn't need your eye's attention? Fact is, there's a lot that goes on in the world of a businessperson that needs to be confidential, and you eavesdropping on them prematurely may jeopardize some of them because people talk too much.

Time and confidentiality are of essence in the lives of businesspersons. If I give you a lift and speed up to catch my appointment and you ask me to slow down, won't that make us feel each other negatively? Best I pass you and drive faster alone and comfortably. Some things just don't work if you try satisfying others for it's only you who'll lose in the end. A lot of us failed because of trying to do that, only to be told later how wanting we were to fail as we had a choice to not do the good we did for others that got us held back. The pressure of dealing with the pressure of failure so hefty especially when the pressure not self caused. Trust me, they don't care about your pressures after they pressured you to do for them, and that's the sad part.

Botho (humanity) is a curse and a blessing in one. Others will thank you and wish you well for it while on the other hand a weapon against you. This reminds me of a friend who borrowed his car to a younger fellow who lied to him about having a family crisis and needing a car to attend to it quickly. The lad returned the car claiming to rush somewhere for him to discover his mess alone. Later when he wanted to park it accordingly, the car didn't allow for him to reverse.

Calling him to find out, the guy said it wasn't him and that he knows nothing and passing the phone to his mother before he could even utter another word. He got told by the lad's mother how he brought it unto himself as he likes acting rich and now wanting her to fix his car by falsely accusing her son before hanging up. What's paining was learning that he went to a forex trading presentation to show off his newly acquired wheels to lure unsuspecting attendees. What happened with the gear links a cost that was left for him to pay for repairs alone, for practicing humanity.

People will always put pressure on you, don't bend for them if they have never proved they can be there for you or for anybody else. Risk with what you know is worth risking for. You can't help everyone, that's what I now can say after compromising myself and my all for nothing.

In conclusion: it's dangerous and alarming how slow good deeds are to punch above the surface than how quickly the bad deeds do. 'Never let another run your race, but never mind them in your marathon' [3]. Your obituary tells a story of your race and make only mentions of your marathon details here and there to show how less important it is, so make sure you're a participant in it, not a passenger of it. Do make your pressure count, but for a good cause. What's left to say is that helping is a risk not an investment, so, help with the thought of liability consequence in mind all the time...

[1, 2, 3] by KgeleLeso