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CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE: Leadership space

The beauty of leadership is comparable to ripples generated when a stone is dropped in still water. Your circle of influence or leadership space refers to the immediate domain of your authority (Ayodolapo Ajao). Immediate in this context is relative because leadership space- like the ripple- is ever growing, so what may be immediate domain of authority for Mr A may not apply for Mr B. It all depends on how well your ability to lead has developed. As a leader, it is your responsibility to develop your capacity to lead. This is achieved in two ways- experience and personal development. The leader is not so much in control of the fact that his circle of influence is growing as he is in determining the rate of that growth and how well he co-ordinates.
There are instances of leaders collapsing or crashing because they could not keep up with their growing leadership space. The leader has to be dynamic and flexible. Doing things the same way- monotony and dogma- will cause your space to implode on you!
There is always a circle of influence or leadership space so long as there is a leader. The truth is that there are two broad categories of people alive- those who take the initiative and those who follow the initiative. Among those who follow the initiative are those who willingly give support and throw themselves into the initiative and those who are indecisive i.e. the drifters. There are no middle grounds. Those who seem to be content with the status quo will eventually bend to the force of change willingly or not.
Your effectiveness as a leader is reflected by the ratio of the latter two categories discussed above i.e. followers and drifters. You are more effective if you have more followers than drifters because followers comply because of your person. Drifters comply because of your authority. You never really have a hold on drifters. They will willingly migrate to a newer superior method. Drifters cause problems in any organisation, whether church or secular. The less of them you have around, the better.
A thing to know about drifters is that they are passive. They are there either because they do not understand what is going on and so do not want to be left behind, or because they have ulterior motives your leadership is not meeting but they feel they have to stay because they cannot do otherwise. This latter group are the ones you must be leery of. If they find the guy to fuel their motives and guide it, they will quickly define their allegiance.
As a leader, you are an orchestrator. Your understanding of your leadership space is critical in determining the materialisation of your vision. Bottom line: Leadership space is people. Understand and know people.

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