Jonathan Farrington writes:

Chris,

Your comments about Kevin are both wholly appropriate and wholly accurate. This is an extract from my blog posting on the Turn yesterday and I think this confirms your view:

“All of us are either leaders or followers: For most of my life I have led; my earliest leadership opportunity arrived when I was seven years old, when I was chosen as captain for my first soccer team.

From then on, I captained every soccer team I played for as well as cricket teams, athletic teams, debating teams, you name it; I was nearly always the leader. I didn’t plan it that way, but that is how it turned out.

Some will say that all these early opportunities developed my character and my leadership skills but I would disagree: I believe that sport does not develop character or leadership abilities and potential, but rather it exposes them ‚¬€ but that is another debate and maybe another posting.

After college, I quickly gained promotion to management and never looked back ‚¬€ so you see, I have minimal experience of being a follower; I think I would make a poor one, because I naturally rally against authority but equally, I have received very little formal leadership training.

However, I have read most of the books written on the subject and I have studied all the great leaders from history, because it is something I am passionate about.

Today, it is my great pleasure to discuss a book on the subject that, in my humble opinion, ranks right up there with the best: I just wish my friend Kevin Eikenberry had written it years ago, because I have learned much from his pearls of wisdom.”

Kevin is a real leadership expert; someone who has worked tirelessly to promote his thoughts; his philosophies and his mantra – he is a leadership guru and as such, deserves all the success he is undoubtedly going to achieve with this new book.

By the way, the poll was fun but I had no expectation. When you have only been blogging on the subject since April, any recognition is a bonus.

Leadership is what I do, it is a passion but not my main area of expertise (see my article submissions here), so to gain 36% of the votes was quite extraordinary.

And thanks for your vote Chris – I wish I could submit more articles and make a greater contribution here but “time strapped” just does not adequately describe it.

Jonathan

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Lance Winslow writes:

I too voted for Jonathan, and have read most of his articles. I see some leadership qualities in many folks here. Just yesterday, I went to Roy MacNaughton’s website-Blog and subscribed to his email alerts. There are a few “excellent” authors here with Blogs. I personally do not have a Blog, but think maybe we need to take the author’s here who have Blogs and make our own top ten.

Leadership
Spirituality
Self-Esteem
Motivational
Marketing
Writing
Sales
Poetry
Creativity
Athletics
Etc.

The reason I say this, is that the talent here is so vast and encompassing and we have so many authors and writers that we should try very hard not to have anyone get lost in the shear numbers. It would be a tribute to the greatest amongst us. Think on it.

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Jonathan Farrington writes:

Lance,

You have forgotten “thought leadership” – my personal view, which I feel certain would be shared by many others, is that you could easily produce a very popular and relevant blog.

The “blogosphere” is an amazing environment, populated by so many interesting people – unfortunately, there is a hierarchy, which is self-perpetuating and which can get lost in it’s own self-importance: Take the people with this mindset outside of their own living rooms and you would find little commercial or intellectual substance.

From my own perspective, my blogs are a way of staying in touch and promoting the work of my friends and associates – online networking!

Jonathan

I wish I could be here more often, it’s refreshing and I miss it.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Ah ha, that is why I wrote “etc” at the end of the list, because as I was rattling that off the top of my head, I “thought” some intelligent being is going to think of another one. Touche! We are both right.

I agree that the Blogoshere is filled with interesting folks. Of course as Mr. MacNaughton might say, maybe there is an 80/20 rule there too? Some information is not worth the Blog it is written on, while others can be a wealth of information. The trick is to find the ones of value, that contain deep thought, insight and valuable information. Like yours.

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Jonathan Farrington writes:

Lance,

Get blogging! You know you want to.

Share your wisdom outside of the confines of article writing – you have so much collateral to start you off.

I will subscribe!

Jonathan

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Lance Winslow writes:

Blogging is not my cup of tea, but I see for many it allows them an outlet for their thoughts. Many people keep journals and blogging is an open journal sharing their insights to the world. It works very well for some folks, and for Bloggers like you who give inspiration and practical know-how, well it is indeed a gift to mankind.

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Kevin Eikenberry writes:

Thanks for the kind words Chris – and congratulations. We did devise the survey of Best Leadership Blogs in part to further brand me and to promote my new book Remarkable Leadership ( http://RemarkableLeadershipBook.com ) but in the end “meeting” people like Jonathan – and to have the “legendary” Lance Winslow vote are great benefits to the process.

We plan to do it again next year and will be looking for even more blogs. I’ve thought about een doing it more like a tournament – offering more blogs the chance to be involved and we will surely do a nominating process as well.

Kevin :)

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Clayton Shold writes:

I found out about the contest from my buddy Jonathan Farrington and am delighted I did. I had not come across Kevin Eikenberry previously and may not have if it were not for this contest. I’ve since visited your site Kevin and was most impressed, I can see why you topped the poll. My congratulations to you for your win and my compliments to you on the idea!
Jonathan congratulations to you for your strong showing. By the way, I totally agree with your philosophy of using your blog to maintain and enhance your networking efforts.

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Clayton Shold writes:

Apologies to Michael McKinney … I left out a line in my post making it sound like Kevin won the contest – that wouldn’t work would it? Kevin I did check out your blog and liked it, my comments above were intended for Michael’s “winning” blog “Leading Blog”. Sorry for the confusion! I’ll blame it on too much sun today.

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Linda Corby writes:

Interesting BLOG Jonathon’s is thank you Chris.

I have always had a tendency to lead, goodness over the years I have found myself leading without trying to, without even meaning to.

At school I just did my own thing and others followed me right from my first day at school.

When I was on the show-jumping circuit even when I wasn’t captain of a team, the team always ended up following what I suggested, and the captain always followed where I led.

Whenever I have joined a group or project the same thing happened time after time.

When I did jury service I was not elected as the foreman, but the foreman had me sit next to him and constantly went on my led.

It is a strange thing but I believe some people are just born leaders. When they are not leading some always appear to manage to steer the leader in the direction they decide to go in. As the saying goes it is ‚¬The woman behind the man’ and in a lot of cases this can be seen to apply.

Leaders are generally people who think out of the box, that are passionate about whatever they are involved in, who just simply go off in their own direction when a group they are in go in a direction they don’t want to follow they just go their own way.

If you where not born a leader I believe that you can learn to be one, the simplest way to do this is to watch and learn from the great leaders in history and copy their example.

A follower can become a leader, but a leader would find it far harder to become a follower because once you have come out of the box it is nearly impossible to fit back into it! That is not to say that they cannot or won’t follow a like minded leader, because they can and often do.

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