Earn Leadership

Are you cool? Can you proclaim yourself cool when such credence is blind to the requirement of others to decide of you? What about leadership, can you declare yourself a leader with the self-righteous belief of a dictator, and survive for long enough to fake it until you make it? Or is the practice of labelling yourself, just that, a label without the support of those who choose to follow. It is only the choice of one to follow another that gives real support in another wanting to be a leader, and it is the giving that affords one to earn the label of leader.

Leadership is not a position taken or held, it requires the use of key skills and practices applied successfully to facilitate a team in reaching its highest potential. First hand evidence of such skills is the most powerful method of gaining trust of another willing to follow and support the path you carve. Faith from another is the only true measure of a leader, without another you continue nomadically as an independent sole — an equally admirable purpose.

Leadership is not a desired path for all, when a fork in the road presents itself the path less travelled can be unappealing. Maintain the familiar and you have just as much chance of fulfilment in your purpose as you will embracing the new challenges of leadership. The greatest military leader may never be known, for they continued their purpose away from the battlefield, never to teach Napoleon a lesson. Purpose is determined by oneself, be it an under-represented existence far from fame or a front and centre stance seeking the widest reach.

Managers assume leadership as a byproduct of position held, collecting labels to market unmerited qualities that climb a ladder hastily put together and an accident waiting to happen. Reputation is a strong indicator of deliverable quality in an individual, even the smallest application of strength builds confidence in the potential to grow like a sprout destined to be a mighty oak, afforded the opportunity to facilitate a positive impact otherwise snuffed out of existence.

True leaders are hard to find, few ever rise high enough to be noticed. Identification of leaders is a harder skill to find in persons, “a good judge of character” is ultimately up to those judged, to confirm or to deny the ’good’ in a judgement. Vision a key skill in leadership, the foresight to predict the future based on the changes in environment or signal in communication channels provides an organisation with a scout keeping one step ahead at all times. Looking inwards to identify strengths in individuals driven to deliver value behind the scenes is a greater aspect of vision, for one cannot do it all alone otherwise they would and an organisation would be but a nomad, a sole journeyman. Organisations are a collection of individuals each with valuable skills placed to facilitate the whole, the leader is an equal party in this community, no better than the machinist producing the product. The leaders responsibility is to the team and each individual in the team to 10x results across the many.

The coveted 10x employee is rare in itself, able to deliver 10 times the value of the average employee. The 10x leader a mythical creature, willingly resides unnoticed in plain sight, facilitating the potential of the average employee to deliver 10x their value. A skill unnoticed in the effortless simplicity to offer individuals the direction to go, the obstacles on route, and getting out of the way to let a previously unnoticed average propel out of obscurity.

Leadership is a rocket firing a capsule into orbit before releasing into the shadows, content with a purpose and value well delivered. True leadership seeks no fame or fortune, the purpose to facilitate success in others is enough, the one thing done well that offers the greatest value to an organisation over the greatest period of time. Earn your followers, serve them selflessly, and enjoy positive outcomes for those among your party.

Related posts:

Check out www.divethings.com for everything scuba!. “Dive Things is now live!” is published by Dive Things in DiveThings.

The goal of this article is to share my experiences in migrating from AWS WAF Classic to WAF v2. Since I haven’t come across an article which mentions the steps, most of them contain information…

Reach Records has taken 2017 by storm. With back-to-back albums, EP’s, mixtapes, and singles Reach has released a total of 100 songs to date this year. To celebrate, Reach Records released a playlist…