One of the things I’ve been working on is defining leadership. As you can tell by now, this isn’t an easy task. Brené Brown in Dare to Lead said that studying leadership is harder than leading. I think that is one of the reasons there are so many books and articles to go through. I asked a group of people individually if they could define it for me and what they believed a leader did. The answers ranged from short, simple statements to paragraph-long explanations. It was pretty amazing how each person came through and willing to answer my questions. Second, their definitions were amazing.
Most people are unwilling to take five minutes to answer surveys to get off topic for a moment. It can be frustrating for researchers to learn about things when no one wants to respond. But that’s okay. We work with what we have and make the best of it.
Now, to the point. When you think about leadership and what a leader does, the most common trended word is people. What does this mean? It means that nothing a leader does is more important than how it affects their people. People are the central focus and priority for anyone who leads.
As a leader, you focus your efforts on your people’s success. This does not always look the same in every scenario. In fact, your leadership may change from person to person or scenario to scenario. For one thing, I can genuinely say that a leader must be flexible and adaptable. You cannot expect what you do in one instance to work again in the next. Sometimes our approach must change. However, this is a conversation for later when we dig deeper into the different styles.
For now, if we focus on what my participants said, we would have to say that a leader influences, guides, mentors, take responsibility, is empathetic, has resilience, vision, accountability, is confident, determined, an art, adapts, does what is right, sets the example, authentic, develops cohesion, provides a purpose, achieves goals, sacrifices, provides direction, is understanding. Okay, maybe we can breathe for a second. In reality, when you look at how these leaders describe leadership, it is a lot to take in.
Some of these traits or what they do takes skill which we can develop as we progress in our careers and lives. As you all should know by now, and something I truly believe, we are or should always be learning. This means also learning to be an effective, compassionate, secure leader. Someone that our people can look to when they are in need or even when they can develop further. This is our role to be there for our people no matter what.
What are you doing to develop you and your people? Here is a link to one of my products that can help you if you desire.
