Leadership is an Attitude. Management is a position. Leadership is NOT exclusive to the workplace. A parent is as much a leader as a CEO - perhaps better.
Stop thinking that leadership is a mere list of traits that you simply check off. A leader has only ONE responsibility: to lead. How he or she leads really doesn't matter. If a leader leads poorly, the followers will choose to follow someone else. If the leader leads well, the followers continue to follow. That's why they're called followers - because they follow. And you're only a leader if people are following. You can't force them to follow you. Authentic leaders understand that. Artificial leaders (those who think that by reading a book or attending a course that they can now call themselves leaders) don't get that.
Artificial leaders are the "fake boobs" of the corporate world. Just like some women say that implants make them feel better about themselves, getting a certificate from a leadership course makes some people feel better about themselves too. But in both cases, there is a difference between authentic and artificial. They look real but you know they're not - you just don't say anything.
Leadership is not management nor is it power, nor control, nor affluence. Who gets chosen to lead is based on the attitudes, opinions and beliefs of followers who believe that the leader they are following is the best person to lead them to where they want to go.
There are no irrefutable laws to leadership. Everything is refutable. Everything is questionable. Anyone who says different is asking you to blindly follow - which means you are not leading.
There is no explaining why some people are chosen leaders and some are not. Osama Bin Laden is a leader, as was Hitler, Charles Manson, Mother Teresa, Gandhi and Buddha. Leaders are not defined by their ability to make the world a better place necessarily. Leaders are defined by having followers - good or bad. Period.
There are 350,000 books on Amazon on "leadership." That means there are 350,000 varying opinions on what leadership is. Not much wonder you can't define it. But you so desperately want to be seen as a leader because you've been convinced that "following" is for the weak. Well maybe you are weak, too weak to acknowledge your weakness. You don't become a leader by self-anointing. Leadership is not a diploma or certificate of course completion. Leadership not something you get in exchange for money. And there is no certification necessary to offer leadership courses.
Want to be a leader? Start saying "no" to the whole idea that leadership is something that you can buy. If you have to take courses, read books and convince others you're a leader, then you're probably not.
ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: What's my definition of leadership? I define it as the biggest time-waster in Corporate America today. It wastes more time and money, sucks more resources and makes more people pompous in their search to be on top than any other single item in the corporate world - and only because you've been led to believe that you have to be at the front - the winner.
The truth is, people recognize authentic leadership when they see it - they just can't explain it - in the same way one hundred people would be challenged to come to consensus in describing the same sunset.
Trying to convince people that by simply following a few rules makes you a leader is perhaps the biggest thing wrong with Corporate North America today. That is not authentic leadership. That's artificial leadership - a fake, a sham, a lie. Leadership is not something you achieve - it is an Attitude.
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2 comments:
Interesting post. Question: So how does one learn to be a leader or are there only natural born leaders and everyone else is a fake?
In my opinion (obviously 350,001), there are VERY few natural leaders in the world. Most people learn to be leaders over time (and hopefully good ones because there are plenty of leaders who stink). I mostly agree with this post, and yours from 8/24, that a 2-3 day leadership course is useless in making a leader...by itself. It is a management course, but it can have leadership components in it that allow people begin or continue learning about leadership traits and developing them -- things they can do to help others see them as leaders and want to line up behind them.
Fortunately or unfortunately, there are other reasons for people to follow leaders than inspiration. You mention that parents are leaders. I think they are probably the truest leaders of all because their children follow them, at least initially, regardless of how good or poor they are. Sometimes people are leaders just because people feel compelled to follow them for one reason or another.
I think there are lots of leaders out there, not just the one at the top. As much as making strong leaders, we also have the job of helping weak or poor leaders be better or be gone.
RJ,
My belief is that there are too many companies claiming to offer leadership courses with durations of only 2 or 3 days. Leadership is a life-long commitment to self-improvement. I started on my leadership journey in 1996. Today, I am still at it. Perfect? No. Leader? Not to my fullest potential yet? Continuing anyway? Yes.
Anyone who believes that leadership can be achieved in a few days course wants what he or she believes leadership brings (power, respect, fame, adulation) when in fact, those are ego-gratification traits. Leadership is more about helping others achieve greatness than seeking it for yourself. How do you teach that in 2 or 3 days?
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