Brian Scheall – Leadership is Like Building a House

“Make it the Best day of your Life” – Brian Scheall

Original: April 11, 2009

Brian Scheall

Cell: (941) 447-6939Email:brianscheall@yahoo.com Website:www.brianscheall.com

2Leadership is like building a house; one must lay the foundation first, and then build their way to the top. Several reasons why sports teams, communities,organizations, and businesses encompass success are through leadership. Individualswithin these successful groups must step forward and take on leadership roles. Theseindividuals that decide to embrace the roles of leaders must possess different qualities tolead over time. These qualities project energy to create a vision, set goals, motivate,overcome challenges, associate with other leaders, teamwork, serve as a role model for future leaders and focus on other people’s interests. Leaders know how to separate the people from the problem and hold themselves accountable for all wrongdoing. Thus, theterm “leadership” is unique in such that any person can define their own translation of theword, believe in their interpretation and conduct themselves according to a certain levelof standards. The concept of leadership is discussed all over the world and has beenredefined thousands of times and continues to be re-worded everyday. However, there isonly one definition of leadership, which should be made universal to everyone in theworld to live by. Leadership is the ability to attract, obtain and bring out the best in other people.Today, many people find themselves in situations they never imagined. Theyare trapped in a place they have never seen before and cannot re-trace their steps. Littledid they know they were constructing a house with no plans in sight. No plan wasdeveloped for a location to pour the concrete and no blueprints were constructed.Obtaining permission to start construction failed because meetings with land contractorsand other team members failed to unite. A

VISION

of how to build this house and whereto lay its foundation was not identified.

3Our world has seen thousands of leaders impact individual’s lives. We havewitnessed individuals such as Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln,and Pope John Paul II influence the lives of millions around the world. In order for themto have accomplished this, they possess the number one quality any leader must have, andthat is vision.A simple definition of vision is a picture or view of the future. Something notyet real but imagined (Rosenbach & Taylor, 2006). Without having an understanding of what direction an individual or organization is heading and how they are getting there,leaders most likely are unable to lead anyone else. Leaders must possess a vision thatinvolves change, is attractive to others, will embrace challenges, and involves a teameffort. A leader defines a vision by projecting energy to accept nothing less than the best.If unable to put forth a vision, leaders will get lost and therefore be unable to lead.Rosenbach and Taylor, in their book,

Contemporary Issues in Leadership

, sayvision statements should be designed to be vivid, memorable, inspiring, meaningful, and brief. A “vivid description” is described as a picture or painting of the future entity or what the organization aspires to become. Cultural values, beliefs and missions must beidentified. A mission should expand the organization, but be possible to achieve giventhe organization’s pursuit of that goal (Rosenbach & Taylor, 2006).According to John C. Maxwell in his book,

Developing the Leader Within You,

Stanford research states that 89 percent of what we learn is visual, 10 percent of we learnis auditory, and 1 percent of what we learn is through other senses. He states, “If youwant to know the temperature of your organization, put a thermometer in the leader’smouth. Leader’s can never take their people farther then they have traveled. Therefore,