The #1 Priority of a Great Leader
It doesn’t matter if you are a leader of a country, state, city, neighborhood, team, or family. There is one priority all great leaders start with. PREPARATION!!!
Focusing on preparation will never make a leader popular. To be popular, leaders focus on immediate gratification. Popularity is a matter of giving people what they want, not what they need. However, popularity is not what makes a great leader great.
Great leaders understand that they can’t wait until there is a problem to prepare solutions. Problems are inevitable. In fact, one could argue that success is defined by how one solves problems. Conversely, not being able to solve problems defines failure.
As a leader, preparing for problems that don’t exist is a difficult job. It requires the leader to convince others to divert time and resources away from activities that provide immediate gratification to activities that require sacrifice.
In sports, coaches do this when they prepare their team to compete against an opponent that only exists on paper. In the business world, leaders do this when they prepare for the future using forecast and projections.
The question I have for you, is how will you do this in your life? What are you preparing for?