Some people just want to be leaders. The reality however, is that not everyone can be the leader they aspire to be, and it is not because they just weren’t born to be but because they fail to reign in and control their own desires to control everything around them. John Maxwell says that the toughest person to lead is not he or she who is actually supposed to be under our leadership but our own selves.
We cannot simply issue orders expecting them to be followed blindly just because we are in a position of being on top. We can only become effective leaders if we are able to focus well on important issues that matters, and because our way of thinking determines our attitudes towards what surrounds us, we would do well to always think positively so that our attitudes become positive as well.
For John Maxwell, since we can control our thoughts and our feelings proceeds from our thoughts, we can definitely control how we feel by changing the way we think. Here is where the power of self-discipline comes into our leadership style. As leaders, we just can’t afford not to prioritize the most important things in our life. We have to learn how to eliminate excuses for not being able to discipline ourselves. John Maxwell is right in insisting that we must improve ourselves to improve our leadership, otherwise, we would continue to blame others for our own mistakes and shortcomings.
For him, leaders must always be ready to examine themselves and be willing to change. And while we should not turn of our feelings, we should not allow our own emotions and feelings to stop us from doing the right thing and prompt us to do things we should avoid. We should not let emotions to master us but instead work on mastering them in order to become better leaders.