Rethinking & Redefining Leadership
What is it that great leaders like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have in common? And what is the secret to their immense success?
Before I reveal the answers to the above, I first want to show you what poor leadership looks like.
Forget what your current job is, and imagine for a moment that you work in the ticket office of your nearest railway station. Due to the train times, you have a working pattern that encompasses early shifts (starting at 6am) and late shifts (finishing at 11pm). You also need to work some weekends and some public holidays.
While you enjoy your job, you do have one problem… your boss.
Not only do they fail to ever praise your enthusiastic work and perfect time-keeping, but they’re also clearly fed up with their own role and with the company in general. Worse still, your boss is hopelessly disorganized, which often leads to shortages of staff - or too many staff turning up for one shift.
In other words, despite your best efforts, you’re stuck in a team that is performing badly due to poor and ineffective leadership. You could say, your boss is making you look as bad as they look!
The example above shows some of the traits of a lousy leader:
- They don’t know how to build a winning team spirit
- They fail to realize the importance of praise
- They lack the respect of their subordinates
- They’re only focused on their paycheck
- They don’t practice goal-setting
So what do great leaders have that set them world’s apart from the bad and mediocre leaders?
Well, firstly, they’re endowed with charisma, charm and likeability.
I’m sure you’ve come across managers with these qualities. They’re able to effortlessly take control of a room or meeting by keeping everyone’s attention focused on their message. Their words are optimistic, strong and contagious. And their vibrant delivery wins over hearts and minds.
The Oxford Dictionary describes charisma as: “Compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others.”
And that’s the crux of the matter. Charismatic leaders have a convincing power that inspires others to follow them.
Of course, just being charismatic is not enough to achieve great success.
The other component (which Gates, Musk and Bezos all have in abundance) is vision. This is the one trait that most leaders lack and is the reason that great leaders enjoy immense success.
What exactly is vision?
It’s a very good question. You may just think it’s the same as having targets and goals to aim for. However, vision, is very different to these things.
This quote from Shiv Khera nicely sums it up:
“Have a vision. It is the ability to see the invisible. If you can see the invisible, you can achieve the impossible.”
Targets and goals don’t have this magic. They are usually ordinary and run-of-the-mill. Vision takes you to another place entirely.
For instance, do you think the development of Microsoft Windows was originally just a goal that a manager set one day? Absolutely not. It required extraordinary inventiveness and imagination. Both key components of vision.
It’s the same with Apple. Steve Job’s had incredible vision, which enabled him and his company to pioneer many technology products, including game-changers such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
What’s your vision for your career and life?
If you don’t have one, then I urge you to spend some time thinking about your aspirations and what you’d like to achieve. (For best results, I recommend you think ‘outside of the box’.)
Humantalents International