WHEN LEADERSHIP AND VOLUNTEERING MEET
Leadership is about people and making an impact in their lives, and so is volunteering. It is interesting to find out that these two marry. Leadership is like volunteering your efforts, talents, and abilities to give direction and a sense of purpose to your team. Therefore, leadership success is defined by the impact made in the lives of other people or society. Many people have defined leadership uniquely yet with the same reverberating theme of impacting people or community and making lives better:
When leadership meets volunteering, it’s the place where people start to give whatever they have of themselves for others. It is where the giving spirit is birthed. Thomas Gale said, “A pessimist, they say, sees a glass of water as being half empty; an optimist sees the same glass as half full. But a giving person sees a glass of water and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty.” This is the heart of volunteering; they always see that opportunity to give. And like the common saying goes, “Don’t ever question the value of volunteers. Volunteers built Noah’s Ark; professionals built the Titanic.” The impact can be so much more than you think.
So every contribution counts, and every volunteering act is a forward step in the path of the victory of making others better. It is so fundamental that the words of Lily Tomlin sound with such an awakening call. He said: “I always wondered why somebody didn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.” Have you come to that place yet? When this happens to you, then leader and volunteer in you have met. When that happens, what follows is a selfless expression of sacrifice and benevolent giving inspired to make a difference in the world, regardless of the cost.
In such moments true leaders arise. John C Maxwell said, “Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another,” the leader in you starts to influence others to a greater value.
In this contemporary generation, the world needs volunteers like never before. Erma Bombeck, a celebrated 20th-century American bestselling author and newspaper columnist, noted that “Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain love for one another.” I believe today we need both such volunteers and influential leaders in the same package.
This article was written by our volunteer content writer Patrick Mugera
REFERENCES
https://www.searchquotes.com/search/Volunteer Leadership/#ixzz6ka4T
Six leadership skills you can gain from volunteering — Marketing Week
By Maeve Hosea 2 Jul 2015
