A series on leadership — insight three

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Recently I thought I had reached a level of wisdom that I could offer thoughts on a number of things in a blog; one of which was Leadership. In my brief overview on the topic, I said this:

Leadership is defined when times are difficult: with vision, decision making, and ownership. This applies to character for that matter.

It struck me that maybe it was impossible to define leadership in a single sentence, and even if I did accurately hit on the three key elements, it’s obviously a very deep subject which warrants more than a sentence. With this in mind, and the need to explore a very important topic further, I thought I’d share some insights from those leaders I have known over the years. I suspect most will fall into what I’ve pointed out as decision making, with vision and ownership being figurative bookends. As I make my way, hopefully I will find something I didn’t pay enough attention to — a reminder that reflection is a powerful tool.

insight three

Question:

I'm currently thinking a lot about the topic of leadership and there are one or maybe two questions in this context that I'm not really getting anywhere with. Since you are writing on this topic in your blog, I thought I would write you and ask you the two questions that are currently bothering me:

1) How do I find out if I am a leader, or if I have the potential to be one? (And here I explicitly mean leader as opposed to boss).

2) How do I find out if I can handle the responsibility that a leader has? And I don't mean responsibility in the sense of personnel responsibility here, but the responsibility to make the world (somewhat) better as a leader.

… maybe your thoughts are suitable for a blog post. Because I think others might have these questions too.

Reply:

Ok, I've spent some time thinking about this so I can offer something constructive...

First of all you can accomplish anything you want, and remember everything (including leadership) is a journey — and as you know, that's where you actually learn something. So definitely don't talk yourself out of taking any opportunity and jump all over what is being offered.

I think it may be better to not look at "Leadership” as a binary thing: I am a leader/I am not a leader, but more as a spectrum of bad to great (and you don't even need a title)... you are actually a leader right now. I think the question is how do I become a great leader that will make a difference? Two general considerations come to mind... 1) you need to be at a level that you can influence organizational change and 2) rally people (direct and indirect) around your vision/plan and get them to make it happen. A leaders job isn't to do it but rather rally others to do it.

Although if you are really good you don't need #1 but it makes it easier for sure; check out the book The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma (https://youtu.be/gqvmd8j6v9M )

If you want any career advancement and ability to lead change, you need people management experience because the only way to get it is to do it... you need the experience of hiring, developing, promoting and terminating just to develop a baseline (in bad times is preferable). It is the only try way to determine if you want to manage teams or would rather be an individual contributor.

The legacy of a good/great leader is in the people they touch and the teams they develop — that's how you change the world; one person at a time. I always took the philosophy that I will try to help a person take my job because my thinking was if I could do that, then I was doing my job.

My advice would be to signal to your boss you are excited about the opportunity and want to go for it — and then become a sponge on the topic of "leadership" (read, courses, a mentor). Buckle up and enjoy the ride!

I like Simon Sinek... a bit of a thought leader https://youtu.be/UZTyvbmW92M

I hope this has helped, and as I say, I would go for it and enjoy the ride.

I received a heart felt reply. It struck me afterward that I had forgotten something; I will follow up on my initial reply but I think it’s so important I will share — “Great Leadership is as much a Philosophy as it is a Journey”

iamgpe

PS: with regards to the original question it has been edited to remove sections to respect privacy, and my response has been edited slightly to correct bad grammar and punctuation.

image: anna-samoylova-unsplash