- Hey Dan,
how do you become the leader others admire and follow?
- I believe in order to be a leader
that others want to follow and others admire
first, you have to be a good follower.
That means that you are willing to be coachable,
you are willing to listen,
that you are open to ideas and you seek mentorship
from people who have more experience than you,
people who are better leaders than you.
We all started out as good followers
and how they become a leader
is when you do have other people also following you.
I want to share three principles with you
that I believe have guided me over the years
through all my journey and helping me
to become a better leader every single day.
The first one is purpose over position.
You see titles and positions,
they give you authority over other people
but that doesn't make you a leader.
As a leader you need people to follow you
that's what makes you a leader.
Out there a lot of people especially in the business world,
they believe that, hey I've got the title
I'm the manager, I'm the VP
and that you should listen to me.
Well, those titles they give you positioning authority
but then that doesn't make you
someone that other people want to follow and respect.
They are two very different things.
I believe leadership is not a title,
I believe leadership is situational.
Let me get an example.
Example, let's say right now
we are going to a certain direction, right?
Say, I am the quote unquote leader, I'm the boss
and I say okay, we'll go to this certain direction.
What if the destination that direction that I'm giving
is actually wrong.
It's wrong.
But maybe someone else knows
the right direction is actually following the GPS
and we should go this direction,
well and then we go to that direction.
So even though I have position, I have the title
but then my direction is wrong
that doesn't make me a good leader
so it changes all the time.
So whoever is making the best decision for the group,
what's best for the group
that makes that person a strong leader.
So I believe a strong leader
always has a very strong purpose,
meaning a strong why, a strong mission,
what are we doing?
Why are we doing it?
Where we are going.
That sense of purpose, that sense of clarity.
And as a leader you've got to communicate all the time.
All the time, all the time.
And in fact, part of your job as a leader too,
is to bring more clarity on a consistent basis
of what the purpose is, what the vision is,
have we refined it?
Are we making any kind of changes?
Are we making any kind of pivot?
So that's a very first principle,
purpose over position.
The second leadership principle I want to share with you is
principles over popularity.
A lot of leaders, not even leaders
a lot of people they want to be popular,
they think, Oh I want to lot of people to like me.
Well, you know what if your goal is for people to like you
you will not be a very good leader because as a leader
very often it requires you to make tough decisions,
decisions that other people may not understand,
decisions that may not be popular
that may not make you popular.
In order to move forward,
in order for the group or the company to survive
you got to make some tough decisions
so it's not a popularity contest.
If you want to win a popularity contest
then you should be
go into a popularity contest
but if you want to be a leader forget about being popular.
In some cases they would misunderstand your decision.
They would criticize, that's all part of being a leader,
that's part of what comes with the territory.
That's what comes with leadership.
So I would say but principles meaning that
you know what you believe in
you make a decisions based on certain guiding principles
that you strongly believe in
maybe give developed over the years
then principals over popularity
that you know it's right.
You know that's what's best for the company and
you know that's what's best for the group
but it may not be popular for certain people
in your group and you need to be okay with that.
And the third principle is passion over power.
I've never met a strong leader that is not passionate.
Can you imagine you go to your members, your teams
and you're like, hey you know I got a good idea.
I kind of I want to share this with you
and I think we're going to do this.
That doesn't inspire anybody, that doesn't motivate anybody.
In order for others to be excited,
to get excited about your idea you first need to be excited.
You got to first have high energy,
you have to be passionate first before anything else.
If you rely on power, meaning that
hey you know what? I am the manager
I am the boss and I am superior
that you should listen to me and that's the way it is,
it's my way or the highway.
No, sometimes people would do it
but deep down they don't believe in that vision
they don't buy into that
but when you're passionate
passion it's contagious.
That when you're excited about something
then you get people excited.
I found that a lot of leaders, a lot of great leaders,
they could get people behind an idea to push forward
I think that's a great quality
that any leader needs to have.
So those are the three principles.
I'll give you a bonus one and that is,
I see other people when they try to be a leader
usually doesn't work.
When they kind of seek leadership
but when they think of and focus on the greater goods,
when they focus on the greater benefit of a group
naturally they become leaders, organically.
Because a leader if you think about it
really lead is a servant to many people,
that's called servant leadership.
It's not positional, it's not title based
it's really, hey you know what?
This person always has the best interests
of the group in mind,
let's give this person more authority,
let's give this person more decision making power,
let's follow this person
because then we're going to go to places.
And I think that's what makes you a good leader,
a leader that others respect and others follow.
Does that makes sense?
Comment below.
Until next time, I'll see you in my Bentley.