You have a chance to invent the future of your company.
“Leadership is the unmasking of pride.”
Jim Woods, Woods Kovalova Group
Leadership is such a ubiquitous term. A leader does not squash human potential. They work fiercely for everyone to have an opportunity to influence the organization’s destiny. Where people feel they have an opportunity to influence their work. A leader unleashes the higher capabilities of people where they yearn to bring the very best of themselves every day.
We talk about leadership as though it is part of the holy grail. “Leaders” don’t have superpowers. On the hierarchical list of the business can be found, executives, managers, and employees. The latter quietly designated serfs i.e. followers destined to dance on a dime.
Let’s play a game to see if all the talk about leadership has meant anything after all. Imagine you do not have the advantages of a title. If we really talk sincerely about leadership you must assume you are absent of any authority. No place in the hierarchy. You cannot terminate, demote, influence pay or disrupt life. Then, ask yourself if you can get something meaningful to happen absent of these “power” levers. Because, to be honest, if you can do this then you are a leader. If you fail with those two assumptions then we are not discussing leadership, but rather protective silos, bureaucracy and the ultimate erosion of power that is cultivated by pride.
What would you surmise is the real conversation in whispered tones about your company and leadership now? Because your managers will only tell you that which protects their silo.
Since penning this article, I have learned little changes. In the past 50 years we have more communication devices, more seminars, 360 feedback, more books and MBA grads in history. Yet, business has more of the same problems than new problems. So, if learning is in the doing why haven’t we mastered the work with people as we have with technology? Jim