Leadership

The subject of leadership is something not easily defined. I do believe that some people are born leaders. They have a natural ability that others want to follow behind. The reality is that there are more needs for leaders than leaders available. I have read several books on leadership, talked to hundreds of people and have observed many, many people leading. Below are a couple thoughts that I have around leadership.

1. Managing and leading are different . . . most of the time. I have many years experience managing people, but not near as many actually leading people. Just to put it simply, managing people is basically telling people what to do. If they do it, you reward them. If they do not follow direction, you punish them. You can manage the heck out of someone but not ever truly lead them. I heard it said best, "Leadership says where. Management says how."

It is possible to manage and lead. Sometimes you need to focus on where you are taking your team. Other times you need to focus on how you are going to move your team in that direction. It is very important to understand when you should do the managing and the leading. An acid test for all you managers out there that think you are leading is to ask yourself this question, "Would my people follow me even if they didn't get paid?"

2. Leadership inspires people to achieve more than they thought possible. Think back to those few people in your life that believed in you to the point that you achieved more than you thought you could. Leaders don't see the man now, they see what the man could be.

A pet peeve of mine is when people say they are giving 110%, 150%, 1,000%. That's a bunch of crap to me. You can only give 100% . . . that's it. You wouldn't say, "there was one pizza, but we at 1 1/2 pizzas because we were really hungry!" One pizza is all you had therefore it would be impossible to eat more than one pizza. That's the same as giving all you have. 100% is ALL you have. Here's the rub, most people aren't operating at anywhere close to 100% their full potential. They only think that they are. So when someone says they are giving "150%", they probably were only giving 50% to begin with. Leaders can see when someone has more to give and they are able to; motivate, manipulate, push, pull, and inspire them to achieve more of their potential.

3. You can't choose to be a leader. In order to lead, you need followers. Followers have the choice on if they want to get behind someone they believe in. I think of the character William Wallace in the movie Braveheart. He was going to fight the British by himself it he had to in order to protect his homeland. He didn't set out to lead anyone. He simply followed his conviction and inspired people to follow behind him.

4. Leaders have conviction and actually believe in what they are doing. I am an amateur on a lot of history, but when I heard about a speech Winston Church gave it gave me goosebumps. My limited knowledge of WWII is that Hitler's war machine was relentlessly bombing Britain in order to break them. It was 1941 and America was just forced into the war because of Pearl Harbor. In October 1941 Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of Britain gave a speech at a University. He told the students, "Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." I encourage you to read this imagining a big older man saying it while pounding his fist to the podium and with a red face and veins throbbing on his temples. This type of conviction kept a country together even despite overwhelming pain and suffering.

I'm sure if I would blog about leadership 6 months from now my list could be totally different. I heard a quote about a Supreme Court judge asked to define pornography. He said, "I can't define it. . . but I know it when I see it." I think that is a good way to think about leadership. Although it can be a complex subject to define and articulate, you'll know it when you see it.