Leadership is not........

I was thinking about leadership the other night. Getting people to do task, to participate is more than just telling them what to do. In my career I have had the opportunity to have people report to me and have had the opportunity to lead many cross functional teams where I have no real authority over any of them.

People often think that Leadership is about ‘Telling’ someone what to do, but the truth is leadership is about having the ability to get people to ‘want’ to do things. You get them to want to because you have created a case showing them what the benefits or values are in completing the task. You get people to follow your leadership out of respect for you because they trust that you have a great good in mind and aren’t just doing it for self. Or people follow your leadership because they see where what you are doing will improve them or what they want.

I have had Leaders that I willingly followed and I have had Leaders that I had to follow. Given the choice I would choose a leader that I wanted to follow.

A true leader does not need to bark out commands or threaten.

Leadership is not…..


DICTATORSHIP