How you too can take control

Most leaders are not CEOs, Presidents, Head Teachers or tech billionaires.?Everybody who has people they are responsible for is a leader, whether four or forty thousand; whether you run a Fortune 500 company or a kids' football team.?This means that there are many more leaders in our companies and indeed across our societies than we usually imagine. It means many of us are leaders from very early in our careers, even if neither we nor the companies we work for think of us (or treat us) in that way. Yet even at that formative stage we are the most important people in the working lives of those for whom we are responsible. To understand leadership better, we must first reframe our understanding of who leaders really are.

?

The greatest fallacy that surrounds a bullshit packed subject is that leadership is an exhaled state - a secret knowledge available only to a chosen few. Yet you don’t have to have sat around a boardroom table, gone to an expensive business school or walked the corridors of Whitehall to either be a leader or understand what leadership is.

?

The truth is leadership is difficult, but it is not complicated, yet a multi-billion-dollar industry has been built on the complexification of the subject. Much of what they tell us (and usually sell to us) is just snake-oil. This is not a mere academic quibble, but a real-world problem that affects us all, every day.

?

Firstly, this bullshit it inhibits those already in leadership positions from fulfilling their potential. Secondly and worse still, it creates a perception of an elite and untouchable knowledge that excludes whole swathes of our societies from believing that leadership is something they can and should aspire to. To our collective detriment.

?

Despite what we’re told, there is no leadership type. When I work with companies and speak to audiences about leadership, this is often the idea that is most strongly resisted so ingrained is it. Yet it is a lie. Leadership is not a god given gift, but something that can be learnt and developed by anybody just as with any other skill. The belief that it is innate rather than learnt inhibits both individuals and organisations from investing effectively in, and benefitting from, its transformative power.

?

Everybody can learn to lead?and to lead well. Indeed, simply the act of wiping away some of the bullshit will make better leaders of us all. Understanding leadership gives us agency, it allows us to take greater control over how we work and our lives.

If you have a dream, learn to lead.

If you’re frustrated and want to fix stuff, learn to lead.

If you want to help others, learn to lead.

If you want to make stuff happen, learn to lead.?

?

The secret is that there is no secret to leadership; it is difficult, but not complicated. There is no leadership type; we should all learn to do it and with the right guidance can learn to do it well.

?

The world is losing trust in its leaders. Now more than ever, leadership must be the preserve of us all.?

AAR

?