Why Leadership Is more About Service Than Rank

Leadership is about enabling the potential in others and getting out of the way so their dreams can enable something bigger. Having people paid to report to you does not mean you are a leader but more likely a manager, which is a very respectable and worthwhile career path, but it is not leadership. It is not even close to leadership!

When people decide to follow you without money, influence, or title, that is leadership. In this context, the invisible title is derived from results and action first. As a leader, you are responsible for incubating synergies to get three out of two. Leadership is about influence, not title. Title is a mostly meaningless word that constantly changes in today's amorphous corporate culture.

A title without great external influence is not a title at all. How can you move someone’s cheese when you can not even move your community? Leadership STARTS at the community level and its nuclear power resides there. Community-based leadership has overthrown a lot of ruthless dictators, leading scammers, and corporate bullies. Real leaders understand the value of academic inquiry (formal or informal), history, change, and that these things together are the precursor to innovation. They also understand that innovation is a team thing and they do not seek to steal the spotlight. Rather, they build up others – those who are almost there thereby making them and the team stronger in the process – this is hugely valuable.

Former H.P. CEO and Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said it best this way, “leadership is about changing the order of things”. Changing the order of things is dangerous because it has many unknowns and it ruffles the feathers of those presently holding power. If you are truly a leader or aspire to be one, get ready to be attacked multiple times. All TRUE leaders are different and DO NOT FIT IN with most people or the status quo, and they are bullied, harassed and attacked, and that is the life they know. They can lead in times of great stress and controversy while the vast majority of people in the world could never even get close, and would break like a generic toothpick at the sign of light criticism.

Carly Fiorina On Management Vs. Leadership – Stanford Univ. 2007.

Although a lot of executives say or believe they are leaders, their actions contradict that. All too often, they can not handle the criticism that comes with true leadership and they are very often afraid of change, or people with abstract cultural personas. In many parts of their personal lives, they could not even pass the simplest leadership test of helping someone less fortunate than them when nobody else will in a disaster situation.

Very often they insulate themselves with simple-minded yes-sayers, fire people who question them, and are more often concerned with the superficial status that comes with being wined and dined by vendors that serve their vertical. Types like these are fools masquerading as leaders but there are plenty of them. Please have the courage to tastefully confront them for the betterment of society.

The real life of a leader is lonely and many will think you are crazy, but not based on real evidence. These are the same types that called Steve Jobs of Apple crazy before Apple became successful but then pretended to be his friend/supporter after Apple became successful – how ironic. The people who think you are crazy (mostly fools) do not understand diversity, the evolution of culture, true creativity, and they most likely could never connect the dots to realize any type of noteworthy synergy. Yet they often hype up all kinds of useless nonsense to promote their fallacious status:

1) You can’t argue with me, I am a Director, therefore I am right. Truth: Delusional.

2) I am a VP, therefore, my ideas are innovative. Truth: No one credible declares innovation.

3) I am a 28-year-old director and will not make time for you because I am in a leadership development program. Truth: Leader development programs have next to no track record and teach corporate conformity. A leader development program would not have helped Bill Gates, Martin Luther King Jr., or Mark Zuckerberg.

With great respect and love for everyone, in my experience, the people making these types of arguments are the biggest fools of all and they are usually one-trick ponies – good at one or two things only and for a short period of time. If you fall for them you have been scammed.

Examples of true leaders include Billy Corgan (alternative rock music pioneer), The Wright Brothers (building and flying the first airplane) William Kunstler (landmark civil rights attorney), John McAfee (anti-virus pioneer), and Steve Jobs (computer pioneer). These people were all criticized in their early years and pushed many people away from their inner circle. Although this criticism and isolation may have broken some people it did not break them.

Most often, real leaders do not fit in with most people and unless they get fame or money they are ostracized. So many in our society are overly focused on fame, media hype, and money. Yet real leaders are not distracted by these immoral fallacies for they have nothing to do with life satisfaction, moral progress, or any type of synergy. Real leaders undeniably inspire movements, better people, processes, and with their vision and advocacy – society, business, and/or technology gets to heights never dreamed possible. Very few people see this at the time, though many are happy to jump on the bandwagon decades after it is validated as cool by the masses.

Martin Luther King Jr. was one such leader and he paid the ultimate price but inspired a civil rights revolution that redefined America – William Kunstler defended him. Philosopher and teacher Socrates was unjustly condemned to death for questioning the current status quo of Athenian politics and society and for teaching students to do the same thing for a better world. Today his ideologies and approach have proven to be the foundation for much of Western philosophy and education. His name is associated with the Socratic Method, which means questioning everything. It is the hallmark of how law schools/graduate schools teach students throughout most of the world and it is a methodology that has proven to save the lives of thousands.

Yet some corporate leaders do not like to be questioned by even the most validated intellectuals. Case in point, when credible writer and analyst Bethany Mclean was questioning Enron CEO Jeff Skilling in 2001 about Enron’s public financials, he blew her off and created a smoke screen to cover up large scale fraud. It’s no surprise that Enron is now defunct, Skilling is in prison (recently released), and Mclean has been proven as the real leader. Having met her, read her works, and having correspondence with her, I know she is everything that makes up a great leader. Great leaders have no problem taking questions from validated individuals of all walks and ranks because they have nothing to hide (including insecurities) and they can use the dialogue to advance their innovative mission. In the data-centric democracy of the United States, business and technology fads come and go, and now is about the new – false leadership will be short-lived.

Socrates Condemned to Death Speech – 399 B.C.

I will take the person with the best ideas and passionate followers over someone who gloats about how prior titles prove anything. Titles by themselves and even with experience do not prove much at all. In the evolving and constantly changing landscape of technology, titles for the most part, do not matter. Results, creativity, and inspirational empathetic leadership are what matter - emphasis added!!

If you focus too much on title, the guy or girl with the right idea will run you out of business and you and your whole team will be left with little money and no title. Please think long and hard about this, if you are claiming to be a leader. You do not want to be like Kodak and fail to see digital cameras are the future, and you do not want to be the leader who failed to see a data breach. You do not want to be an overconfident leader who self-declares your morality over subordinate objections but who years and perhaps decades later is deemed as greatly immoral. You do not want to be that executive whose peers support you only because they are paid to but really do not respect you, and are not at all inspired by you. This happens a lot and this faulty leadership under good governance will be short-lived.

Lastly, to that person who gloats about their V.P., Director, SVP title, or the like, ask them how many people would follow them passionately without money in times of great challenge while others criticize them. Likely, they will be confused, because most leaders are below the surface working to make the world a better place while the above fakers seek status and “yes” cliques. They know nothing about leadership or moral courage.

To think that titles are a rite of passage to leadership is one of the most dangerous fallacies in society to date. It has caused wars to be lost, inspired political violence, caused elections to be lost, technologies to be missed, and it is a solvable irony for a society as advanced and gifted as the human race. What are you doing to be your own best leader for the greater good of others? I assure you it has nothing to do with title.