Leadership Matters?

I get asked this question all the time: Why do I write this newsletter? Why do I believe leadership matters so much? Why am I so convinced that anyone can lead from anywhere when so few will actually do it?

We throw the words “leading” and “leader” around all the time - in every context and in association with almost every event. As a result, we can confuse followership with leadership, position and title with leadership, power with leadership.

An entertainer has millions of followers, but this does not make them a leader. We have all observed CEOs with the big title who do not lead. A politician may have devoted loyalists but still fail to lead. Over the time, we have witnessed tyrants and dictators who amass enormous power and change events as a result. Yet we intuitively understand that power alone does not define leadership.

What is leadership? Who is a leader?

There are three tests:

1. A leader focuses on change for the better and solves problems;
2. A leader unlocks potential in others;
3. A leader serves someone or something beyond themselves.

None of these criteria are about power, title, position, or popularity. A true leader does not focus their energy on achieving a title or amassing and retaining power. And while a leader ultimately must build allies and followers to achieve their objectives, these followers are not blindly loyal or loyal because they fear reprisal, but because they are focused on achieving change that is worthwhile and because they themselves get stronger and more capable in the process.

Because we confuse leadership with power, title, position, and popularity, too many of us convince ourselves that we cannot lead - or we cannot lead yet. So many of my Leadership Lab participants eagerly await their next promotion and tell me they are preparing themselves to lead then - just not now!!

Whenever I am engaged in, I am always impressed by the sophisticated understanding participants have of the problems that impact them. I am struck by the effectiveness of solutions they propose. And I am also inspired to help these participants realize they do not need to wait for anything or anyone. They themselves can lead and change things for the better. And while there is always resistance to change, there are also always good things that come from problems solved and progress made.

I know this from personal experience, and it is this experience, built over a lifetime, that I am motivated to share through these newsletters and personal interactions.

I started out at the very bottom of an immense corporate ladder as a young woman in a high-tech man’s world. No one expected me to lead and I was formally unqualified and unanointed to do so. And yet there were problems everywhere, people who were impacted by them, and colleagues who were willing to be enlisted to change things for the better.

There are always problems all around us. We know what they are. They can be solved. Problems fester and needed change is avoided because leadership is absent. Leadership is always the catalyst required to focus energy and attention, to build new capacity, to change things for the better. And while a promotion may well come from this change, it isn’t necessary to begin this process.

I write this newsletter; I know how many problems would benefit from your leadership. I know what it takes to make a real difference from wherever you are and no matter who you are. And I know how frustrated many of you seem by the lack of leadership you perceive around you.

Our world is a complicated place. Your world is a complicated place. Problems abound. Maybe, just maybe, the catalyst for making progress on these problems is you. Maybe, just maybe, you can be the leader. Truely Leadership Matters for you.