Not All People in Positions of Leadership are Leaders. Not all Who Are not in Positions of Leadership are Not Leaders.

We have a serious global leadership crisis. We must address it with the fierce urgency of now. Otherwise our planet is at peril. The fact that one occupies a leadership position in a company, organisation, business, government, economy or society does not make one a leader. In fact, there are many many people around the world who are in positions of leadership who are not leaders at all; they lack what it takes to lead for real. There are also others who even lacks the consciousness that they are leaders and they therefore must be leading. Among those who have the consciousness that they are leaders and must therefore lead are many who think they are leading, but they are not. Another subset of these people in positions of leadership (PPLs) think they know how to lead, but they don't. These people, many of these people in positions of leadership but who are not leading are not even aware of it, so they will not pay attention to the message and make amends; they will remain adamant and dismiss the message.

When we have people in positions of leadership who are not leading in companies, organisations, businessess, economies and the world, we get many serious challenges and crises. Companies and businesses that are leaderless perennially underperform and even eventually collapse.

How does it happen that we end up with people in positions of leadership who are not leading? Here are two reasons?

Reason 1: What Makes People Rise to Positions of Leadership is Not What Makes One Become an Effective in Leading

This may sound like hype but this is reality. Mos people rise to positions of leadership, or are promoted to leadership positions not based on objective parameters that accurately predict how well an individual will deliver as a leader. This means that many people who rise to positions of leadership rise to levels of their incompetence.

Reason 2: When People Rise to Positions of Leadership; They do Not Train, Learn and Develop to Improve Their Leadership Performance

Many people rise to positions of leadership not based on sound leadership ability criteria, but they fool themselves that they got into positions of leadership because they are great or extraordinary leaders already when they are not at all. They do not understand that to become an effective leader you also need learning, training and development in leadership. So they become boastful and arrogant instead of remaining humble and learning, training and developing as much as they can in leadership and leading. Among these are highly educated people with Masters Degrees (including MBAs and BLs) and Doctorates.

Many people do not know this. There is no direct correlation between general academic qualifications and leadership ability. In other words;

It does not mean that if you have a Master of Science degree then you automatically have leader material; neither does it mean that you have greater leadership potential than one who has a bachelor of science degree. Posession of a Ph.D. is some subject not related to leadership does not make you a better candidate for a leadership position than one who has a lesser qualification. This is huge mistake that many boards, companies, organisations, businesses, economies and society makes.

The world must wake up this before it is too late. We have a serious global leadership crisis. We must address it with the fierce urgency of now. Otherwise our planet is at peril.

?Simon Bere, 2024