On Leadership

I came across two important thoughts this week as I have been contemplating the true nature of leadership.

The first is, “What is a leader?”

Ramit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich, noted that “leading is about taking responsibility for offering choices to people and for bringing out the best in yourself and in others.”

I love this framing.

There are many different styles of leadership, but what is most important is that leaders are responsible for offering choices. Sometimes you may only offer one choice and that is ok. A leader is a person that is comfortable helping others make decisions.

Also, a leader FIRST brings out the best in themselves BEFORE helping others do the same. True leaders do the work of continuous self-improvement. It’s what you do, not just what you say that makes you a leader.

The second question I contemplated was, “How do I become a better leader?”

Janice Bryant Howroyd has an answer for that.

When it comes to leadership, you never manage people. You only manage processes. Your management style should evolve to be more about setting up and communicating processes while offering choices to people to help them get unstuck. To manage a process, you should focus on how decisions get made, how work gets done, when the work is due, and what outcomes everyone should be pushing toward.

To help people improve, they should first learn by watching how you approach work. Then you can help them maximize their own output using lessons from your own journey.

In short, leadership is being responsible for offering choices, continuous self-improvement, and managing processes.

Let’s all be better leaders this week.