"To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men."
-- Havelock Ellis
Leaders don't face you -- they face away from you. The leader's eyes are on the future, on the expanding vision, on the horizon. You don't want a leader who's walking backwards, looking at you with a goofy smile and tripping over stuff as he falls forward. You want a leader that you can follow.
But we can also view Havelock's statement from another perspective. The leader must go off on his own, "turn his back on men" in order to develop his leadership skills, vision and courage in the first place. Sort of a post modern version of Jesus forty days in the desert.
A leader can't just be hanging out at the bar all the time, or watching reality TV, or working away like a good, little worker bee in some God-awful cubicle somewhere. No, a leader has to step out, forge a new path, leave the company of others for a time to find and develop the new way. If you aspire to leadership at all, you must have the iron cojones to leave the warm, security of the herd and head down old Robert Frost Avenue to a road less traveled.
So, today, take some time alone. Look at the world, especially look at what you don't like about it. And then imagine a way to change it. Leadership begins in the imagination. Every leader is first and foremost an imagineer, a person who can see what's not yet there, and develop a path to make that vision a reality.
The spark of leadership burns within each of us. It's up to you whether you feed it and stoke it so that it becomes a fiery flame, or let it smolder and go cold. Spending all your time involved in mindless activities with others will smother the spark, guaranteed.
So, turn your back on men (and women, too), run lickety split, and head for the hills! Find a quiet place where you can settle into the quiet space within your mind, that space where the air is pure, the distractions are minimal, and the spark of leadership grows.
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