Have you "talked" yourself out of being a leader?
Maybe you've come to the conclusion that leadership is for those people who were born at the right time, in the right environment, with the right resources. But I ask you to step back from your own self-judgement and re-imagine leadership.
Actually we are all leading. If you are alive, you are leading. The difference between good leadership and bad leadership is intentionality. The Bible records the wisest man in history as saying, "A king's throne is built on love and truth," Proverbs 20:28. In other words, the foundation of leadership is loving others consistently. Why?
You cannot influence what or who you don't love.
And leadership is dependent upon influence. As you recognize the influence you do have (right now, not some day in the future) and steward that influence intentionally (using it to help others learn, grow, and improve) you have the essence of good leadership.
As Vince Lombardi has famously said, "leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile." Right on Vince!
So the question is not, "are you a leader?" Rather, the question is, "are you leading well?" To help answer that question, you may need to unlearn some conclusions you have drawn about what leadership is. Below are five of the most frequent lies people have believed about leadership in my experience. Happy unlearning!
1. "To be a leader, I need to have a big sphere of influence."
False. You do need influence to lead. However, nobody has direct control over the scale of their influence. But we all have control over the quality of our influence. The essence of leadership is always the same; love, service, honor, personal-responsibility, self-control, humility, etc. These are the virtues that establish the quality of leadership you have. Your leadership starts with the way you lead yourself, then expands out to your intimate friends & family, and then to aquintances and even strangers. As the scale of your influence grows, the expression of leadership may look slightly different but the essence is unchanged. It tends to be, as we consistently demonstrate a high quality of leadership, the scale of our influence will expand. People want to connect with sources that add value and strength to their lives. A high quality leader is like a deep well of cool, refreshing water in a hot and vast desert. People will come to you for a drink and direction, if you have the clean, cool water of quality leadership. Fundamentally, leadership is about valuing and loving people which creates in you a desire to strengthen and encourage them. Don't make a large scale of influence your goal, lest you become a people-pleaser who lacks substance. Rather, make becoming a quality leader your goal, and let the scale of influence follow. Be thankful for where you are, always, and look for ways to grow, always.
2. "Leaders do the most talking in a group setting."
False. Being a leader means being a confident listener. I say 'confident' because some people who talk the most in a group are doing so to take control because they are afraid. They are afraid the group may talk about something on which they have little to say and they fear looking ignorant or, perhaps, they are insecure and need the group to know how intelligent or well-educated they are. Your ability to dominate the airwaves is not a measure of leadership. Try the 80/20 rule: listen 80% of the time and speak 20% of the time. Imagine how much you would learn if you listened four times as often as you spoke! Imagine how loved others would feel by you if they were listened to.
3. "Leaders need to have a persuasive or charismatic personality."
False. While having these traits may help you entertain or hold the attention of an audience, it will not make you a good leader. Leadership is not a personality. Leadership is a lifestyle choice. Your unique personality will match your unique expression of leadership. When you make a commitment to love and serve other people around you, motivating them to be the best version of themselves, leadership will flourish. Your personality won't ever constrict leadership. Your personality will direct your leadership. Your authentic personality is meant to be a gift to you and others. Make sure you receive this gift!
4. "Leaders must be able solve any problem." False. Yes leaders are responsible for advancing people and issues. But, they do this through facilitating a creative environment of teamwork and discovery—which produces greater breakthroughs than they could have achieved alone. Leaders are collaborators. Their primary responsibility is to develop highly functional teams, then to coach and support that team through the process of discovery, understanding, & implementation. The results a leader is able to deliver depend on their commitment to their team and the actions they take to express that commitment; first commitment, then actions, then results — that's the way good leaders deliver.
5. "Failure disqualifies a person from leadership."
False. Everyone fails. How you decide to respond to failure is what separates those who lead well from those who don't. We cannot hear this message enough. If you choose to learn, unlearn, or relearn from failure you will grow. You'll be able to try again with a different perspective, using a different approach, and achieving different results. You often must fail your way into success. Winston Churchill said it this way,
"success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts."
Failure can be fatal, but only if you allow it to be. It's the courageous spirit in a person that drives them to grow, and that is what positions them to be a good leader. Recognize also that success is not final. When you are focused on continual growth, successes become achievements or breakthroughs along the journey. A friend of mine recently said it like this, "achievements are signposts not goalposts." They let you know you're moving, but the real goal is continual growth and improvement.
Thanks for reading. It's only as all of us are leading together, that our deepest dreams will be realized.
