FollowtheLeader.indd

FOLLOW THE LEADER

“Th ere’s one thing worse than missing

your dreams. It’s never to have had one.”^2

(Paul Powell)

An authentic vision includes sight...insight...foresight...far-sight. Therefore,
every new church...new ministry...new agency...new institution...
new invention...new endeavor...new business...new approach...new
paradigm...new perspective...new break-through – is the result of
vision. These radical changes do not happen accidentally, capriciously, or
randomly. Every new thrust that is made, every new barrier that is broken,
every new threshold that is crossed, is because someone had a vision and
laid hold of it like a snapping turtle! They laid hold of it with untiring
tenacity because it first laid hold of them with unrelenting pressure! Paul
Powell described this crucial visionary aspect of leadership this way:

Vision has nothing to do with sight. It is a process of the mind. It is

mental, not visual. It is seeing what everybody has seen but thinking what

nobody has thought. The best leaders and the most powerful motivators

have always been those with the ability to see today what others see

tomorrow, to envision great things occurring in the future, and to see

them happening in great detail.

Ideas are the great moving force of history. For that reason, thinking

is the single most important ingredient of leadership...we can never be

free to do what we cannot think...You can mark this down, the difference

between monumental littleness and greatness is not talent, nor charm,

nor financial resources. The difference is vision. The great challenge

of leaders, then, is to use their God-given and God-like ability to think

and dream. To use their eyes for something more than just to keep from

bumping into things. So if you are in a place of leadership, wake up and

start dreaming. Take off your night cap and put on your thinking cap!^3

Powell concludes these thoughts with a cogent quote by D.K. Caldwell:

Big men think big; little men don’t think!^4

Former President Richard Nixon made this observation:

All the really strong leaders I have known have been highly intelligent,

highly disciplines, hard workers, supremely self-confident, driven by a

dream, driving others. All have looked beyond the horizon.^5