A Leader Is A Master Of Strategic Steps

Bishop Dag Heward-Mills

Can you imagine what a difference it would make if all our leaders were masters of strategic steps?

Seven Things You Need To Know About Strategy

1. A leader knows that every great or important destination requires a number of steps to get to it.

A good leader must accept the reality that no great achievement involves just one step. It will involve a series of steps, a series of manoeuvres or a series of stratagems. The series of steps, manoeuvres or stratagems is also known as strategy.

Strategy is defined as a series of manoeuvres that are undertaken to achieve a specific goal.

Simpletons are averse to strategies. All they want is something to be done for them. If they do accept the responsibility, they do not want anything that involves more than one step.

Not so with a leader!
2. The worst leaders will take zero steps to achieve anything. They live in constant expectation of something being done for them.

The mentality of a bad leader is that someone owes them something and someone has to do something for them or to them. This is often the mentality of people who have been slaves before. It is also the mentality of people who are used to others thinking for them.

Their understanding is that something has to be given to them or handed over to them.

Such leaders constantly read speeches requesting aid and describing their woes, lacks and efficiencies, hoping that it will touch the heart of a philanthropist somewhere.

Even after many years such leaders do not perceive that their woeful plight and pathetic situation does not touch the hearts of many people or the men in this selfish world. It takes years for zero-step leaders to realize that no one will freely pour out his hard-earned wealth into their laps.

Such a bad leader is excited to receive wealthy visitors because at the back of his mind he expects something to be given to him or done for him. To be a leader you ought to take practical steps to achieve what you desire.

3. Bad leaders are interested in taking only one step towards a goal.

Bad leaders are a little better than the worst leaders because they take at least one step towards their goals. But most things are not achieved by taking one step. Many people will take the step of prayer.

Many of us will take one step of fasting and praying every year.

Many church members will take one step of sowing a seed in order to be prosperous. But one step does not go very far.

As you sit in your seat reading this, if you were to take just one step how far would you get?

But that is all people want to do. They just want to take one step towards their goals. There are few things, if any, that can be reached with one step. The Bible says that '… things work together for good.' Many things work together to make one thing beautiful or successful.

Many things are combined in a particular way and with particular timing to make a nice stew or soup. It is not just having one thing (good meat) that will make you have a nice stew. Many things will work together.

Because one step gets you almost nowhere the one step that is taken is often seen as having not worked. Because of this, people who have taken the one step of praying or one step of fasting or one step of sowing a seed have often complained that the one step did not work.

Remember: great achievements involve MORE THAN ONE STEP.

4. The greater the goal the more the manoeuvres and steps you need to take.

The greater and more impossible the goal is to you, the more steps you will have to take to get there. To achieve great goals you will need to take many steps.

5. Each step in a strategy requires faith and patience.

The first few steps require the most patience as well as the most faith in the wisdom of your strategy. If one of the steps you are taking is to implement decisions, then you need to consistently implement what has been decided after the decision is taken.

If one of the steps you are taking is to have your quiet time, you need a lot of faith and patience to consistently have your quiet time, believing that it will have an effect on the outcome of your life. Do not sit back and expect a decision to come into being. Implement it! The Bible says:

That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 6:12
6. Many strategies to get somewhere or to achieve anything can be broken down to a number of steps.

With a number of steps you can get to any destination or person in this world. Outline your steps and head for your goal!

7. Become a man who takes as many strategic steps as needs be.

Graduate from being a zero-step person or a one-step person and you will be counted as one of the remarkable leaders of our time.

Indeed, we will continue to pray that God makes our leaders masters of strategic steps!

By Dag Heward-Mills