Power and Influence are tools for a winner! Use em don't abuse em

I read a Leadership text book, and one chapter caught my attention.

This chapter is very important for me because I never really understood the importance of power and influence in life. I was tunnel vision and felt that being your-self and being a good person will always prevail into success. This mindset may be true but it is not always going to get the job done. Being a good person is my moral and personal ethic that I will always have. However learning how to gain and use power/influence will get me where I want to go in order to accomplish any objective. There is good and bad ways to use power and influence. “It is up to you on how you want to use it”; “and just like getting mad or overreacting, we will all abuse the use of power and influence because we are not perfect.” But! If I took the time to learn how influence and power could work for me, than I would be able achieve my goals better. Being a winner, a top executive, a successful person will require influence and power at some stages in life. Our human characteristics and traits will always bring challenges such as resistance from others, haters, jealousy, distrust, and critics. Therefore learning how to use power and influence will not only serve as useful tools in dealing with those challenges, but it will also allow me to get myself where I want to be in life.

Accomplishing your goals and achieving success places you in a position to have opportunities. And some of these options may empower you to help others and/ or apply your good ethics for the greater good and welfare of others. Not to say that your success will always require a connection to good deeds, but it give you the opportunity to contribute something positive when necessary. Nobody is perfect in life, therefore leaders still make mistakes and bad choices, but if there are good leaders who have an overall good moral and ethical mindset, many people will benefit from your success just as you benefit from your own success. Power and influence are good tools to move a person to success, just try not to abuse them by purposely hurting others.

Being successful or a winner used to not be important to me because I felt like it did not always matter. Being a winner was complicated and more attention always attracted more problems. My inexperience with success discouraged me from competing in life. However now I understand that being a winner or successful person has a lot of benefits that can provide me with personal reward, opportunities, and empowerment:

Being number # 1 gives me financial security and other rewards, and gives others something to look forward to. Being number #1 gives me opportunities make positive impacts on other people’s lives. “If no one were willing to take the lead, then who would motivate us to succeed.” Even GOD is a winner because we all look up to him. We will never be GOD but being a leader is a skill that GOD has given us. And the tools that will help us achieve such success are learning how to use Power and Influence.