Network Marketing Success - Leadership is Influence

There are many qualities of a successful leader:
I am only going to direct attantion on influence in this article…mainly for the reason that the genuine measure of leadership is INFLUENCE, nothing more and nothing less.

A leader is someone that will do all they can possibly do to “influence” their down-lines to do what ever they need to do to accomplish their network marketing success. Now, certainly there will always be those who just will not be willing to do “anything it takes”, often because they tell themselves that it is too hard, they just can’t do that, or whatever. But a great leader will be able to persuade, inspire and motivate more people to change, enlarge and develop skills etc. than will the person with less significant influencing capability.

If you don’t have influence, you will in no way be able to lead others. That statement begs the question…”How then do you measure influence?”

To answer that question I’ll give you a story…

In 1997, the humanity was stunned by two events that occurred less than a week apart: the deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. To the uniniated these two women could not possibly have been more unlike. Diana was a tall, young attractive princess from England who associated herself in the highest society. Mother Teresa, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient was a diminutive elderly Catholic nun born in Albania who served the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, India. Nonetheless the remarkable thing was that their impact was remarkably similar. In a 1996 survey, published by the London Daily Mail, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa were voted in 1st & 2nd places as the world’s most caring people. Now, that just doesn’t come about except you have a lot of influence. How could two people as extrordinarily different as Princess Diana and Mother Teresa ever be thought of in any way similar? Put simply…she demonstrated the outworking of “influence”.

When she married Prince Charles virtually 1 billion people around the world watched the televised wedding. After taking a period of time to settle in to her new role, she started travelling & representing the royal family around the world, she quickly made it her purpose to serve others, raising resources for innumerable charitable causes. During the process she built countless significant relationships…politicians, leaders of charitable causes, entertainers and heads of state etc. At the beginning she was simply a catalyst for fund-raising, but over time her influence enlarged…as did her aptitude to inspire changes.

She rallied people to causes like AIDS research, caring for people with leprosy and a ban on land mines. That final topic she successfully brought to the attention of world leaders, even compelling the Clinton administration to support a world conference outlawing the devices. Such was her influence that she put the issue on the world agenda, influencing even the US President.

Initially, Diana’s title had simply provided her a platform to talk to others, but she progressively became a person of influence independant of her title. When she was divorced from Charles in 1996, she may have lost her title designation, but her impact (read “influence”) on others in point of fact continued to enlarge…while…even with titles and position, that of ex-husband Charles got progressively smaller. Astoundingly, even after the event of her tragic death her influence continued. When her funeral was broadcast on TV and radio the entire watching/listening audience was estimated at something like 2.5 billion…well greater than double the number who tuned in to her wedding. A classic manifestation of the law of “influence”.
Diana is perhaps hardly ever referred to as a leader…yet that is precisely what she was. She made things happen for the reason that she was an influencer, and leadership is influence…nothing more, nothing less.

Leadership is NOT:

Management…management usually implies some kind of designation, but a title isn't required to exert influence. A manager can continue direction, but they can’t alter it unless they are also a leader. To realign people in a fresh direction you must have influence.

Knowledge… there are countless extraordinarily scholarly and well-informed people with capability to think so high it is difficult for an "average" person to comprehend…but whose aptitude to lead is so low it hardly registers on the charts.

Entrepreneur… one can very well be exceptionally inventive, innovating, successful, brilliant salesperson etc…but have no long term influence with people. So not all leaders are entrepreneurial, and not all entrepreneurs are leaders.

Pioneer… it is a misunderstanding to believe that someone “out the front” is inevitably a leader. Being first and being a leader are different. To be a leader one not only needs to be out front, but also have people gladly coming behind & following the lead, acting on the leaders vision.

Position…position and leadership have nothing to do with each other. There are vast numbers of people with “position” but who have insignificant or no influence and countless people who have absolutely no position but who are exceptionally influential. “It’s not the position that makes the leader; it’s the leader that makes the position.” Stanley Huffty.

A leadership proverb: “He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.” If you can’t influence others, they won’t follow you. And if they won’t follow, you’re not a leader. That’s the “Law of Influence”.
It matters not how you think and talk of yourself, a genuinely successful leader is someone that motivates their down-lines to reach their network marketing success. You need to train your down-lines how to generate their own leads and find their own prospects…offline and online.

As a leader you should empower others. A good leader is not a person who does it all themselves but who teaches others to be independent and to be very capable of completely making you redundant. The greatest position you can be in is where you are no longer needed.

You will in addition realize that you are not there to be their boss, to bully them, or to give orders. People do not join network marketing to be ordered around by their up-lines, but to be independent business people. You can learn to be firm when you want your down-lines to do something for their own accomplishment, but be firm in inspiring…not firm in bossing.

Last but not least, a good network marketing success leader is someone who is prepared to work for the betterment of their people and make sacrifices. There is no long term network marketing success without sacrifice and though it can at times be difficult to surrender your time, money and sometimes your comfort, it will pay off if you work hard and build a enduring organization so that your down-line leaders will be equipped to duplicate what they have observed and experienced you doing.

I love to mentor & encourage you to Network Marketing Success& plug you into the best training resources with the express aim of empowering you to achieve all you were created to be. Click link below for free access to a complete turnkey MLM attraction marketing, training, internet & social marketing system. Weekly webinar & tele-classes training by $million income earners from around the world eg Todd Falcone, Jack Zufelt. overthetop.epicsponsoring.com More information on my Network Marketing Success blog

Article Source: http://www.leadershiparticles.net

Please Rate this Article 5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5  Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Articles on Leadership Areas Via RSS!