Leadership

Leadership is from my perspective one of the most misunderstood subjects in life or business. Leadership has nothing to do with rank. I have seen and known many people who sit at the highest levels of an organization who are not leaders. We do as they tell us because they have authority over us. But we do not trust them, and we do not follow them. I also know people at lower levels of organizations that have no formal authority. But they made a choice, the choice to look after the person on the left of them and the choice to look after the person on the right of them, and we would trust them and follow them anywhere. Leadership is the awesome responsibility to see those around us rise. Every one of us can choose to be the leader we wish we had. We lead our teams, and we can lead those around us when we decide that we will do everything in our power to see them rise, grow, succeed, and achieve their ambitions and dreams. This is what servant leadership means. I serve your dream rather than you serve my bottom line. It is reasonably ok to have financial goals. It is totally fine to have a strategic plan and metrics because that becomes the proof and evidence of value that somebody wants to invest time and money because they believe in you. It is proof positive. The best leaders that I know are students of leadership. There is no such thing as an expert leader that does not exist. Like there is no such thing as an expert parent, it does not exist. We are students of leadership and even the highest senior leaders constantly are learning through listening and reading books to gain more knowledge and aspects about leadership. They are always in learning mode. I think for anyone who wants to be a leader you must choose to be a student of the subject. Like anything that you want to be good at, you must study it. The most ignored characteristic of leadership is about vision and desire and yes these are important, but I have known some great leaders who do not have a large platform or world changing vision. I have known some wonderful leaders that are quiet and sit in the corner. But the one thing in common is they all have courage. The courage to advance a vision, the courage to ignore the short-term ups and downs of the business or situation. The courage to take risks on people, the courage to believe in people. The courage to speak truth to power, the courage to do the right thing and have integrity, I think courage is a very undervalued characteristic of leadership. It takes courage to step out of the status quo and sometimes not do what’s popular or convenient. In closing, there is no substitute for a vision with a strategic plan that is not only executable, but measurable and knowing what that thing or things are you will not do as you work toward your vision. Legacy is the output of servant leadership, what will yours be?