What is leadership?

What is lead­er­ship?  Before I answer that, I want to talk about what lead­er­ship is NOT.  It’s not:

• CYA (Cover Your A**E)
• SEP (Some­body Else’s Problem)
• What’s best for ME
• Chang­ing your mind when you meet resistance
• Say­ing one thing and doing another
• Blam­ing your team
• Tak­ing credit for your team’s work
• Pub­lic crit­i­cism of performance
• Never say­ing thank you (Why should I thank peo­ple for just doing their jobs?)
• Expect­ing more than you’re pre­pared to give yourself
• Work­ing on the detail instead of the big picture
• and so on…

The oppo­site of each of those things is lead­er­ship:

• Take some risks
• It’s MY problem
• What’s best for US
• Push­ing through resistance
• Mak­ing your actions and words match, all the time
• Tak­ing the blame (the buck stops here)
• Giv­ing the credit to your team
• Say­ing thank you, all the time (Peo­ple should be thanked just because they’re peo­ple, and they want to be noticed)
• Raise the bar by mod­el­ling your expectations
• Let the details fall where they may — lead­er­ship is the oppo­site of fru­gal­ity (ie in lead­er­ship, if you look after the pounds — ie the big things — the pen­nies will look after themselves).

Related Posts:

• It’s all in your mind
• Do as I say, not as I do
• On Why Dying is Good for You
• The don’t do list
• How to Have a Per­for­mance Conversation