Leadership Series 3: What is leadership to you?

What is leadership to you?

If you go thru several books, references, and research documents, you will find at least 800 plus definitions of leadership, the important thing is "What is leadership to you?" What resonates to you about leadership is more important than all the definitions you can read and study on. One of the best way to learn more about it is for you to describe the top 5 leaders you admire. Those leaders did a great job of influencing you to begin with.

Who is your model leader - In the area of creating more business for our economy, is Donald Trump a great leader to you putting all political ideology aside? In the area of creating great companies addressing the needs of the travel and leisure market, is Sir Richard Branson a great leader for you? In the area of innovative companies addressing the future needs of society, is Elon Musk a great leader to you? In the area of helping the world become a better place to live thru philanthropy work, is Bill Gates a great leader for you? How about the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is he a model leader for you? How about the immigrants to America who are leaders of their companies like Satya Nadella of Indian descent who is currently the CEO of Microsoft and like Sergey Brin from Russia who co-founded Google, will you consider them as your model leader? With numerous innovation introduced thru Apple, will you consider Steve Jobs a great leader? How about your parents that influenced you to achieve what you wanted in life, will you consider them your model leader?

Once you identified your model leader, what's next? - Once you identified your model leader, make a mental checklist of items you like from the person in terms of their leadership skills. Then you ask yourself, is this the type of leader I want to be as well. If you answered yes, it is time for you to be the leader you wanted to be.

Be the next great leader - Once you identified the traits you like from your model leader, it is time for you to be the next leader. Those model leaders are there for you and influence you to be the next great leader. Most model leaders will even be happy knowing how they influenced your life to become the next great leader.

It's time for you now to influence the next great leaders of tomorrow - When you feel that you influence the lives of other people to become the next future leader, it is the time you feel you have given back to society what the art of "giving" meant. You could be the father influencing your kids, that is leadership. You could be the community leader influencing the youth, that is leadership. You could be in HR influencing how your organization works, that is leadership. You can be in digital marketing influencing the next generation, that is leadership. Leadership comes in many shapes and forms. It's time for you to influence the great leaders of tomorrow. You can start now.