Yesterday’s email took these points on Womack’s conception of leadership:
- Leadership equals heroic leadership.
- Leadership equals authority.
- Leadership is about convincing others.
Here’s why this view can’t be sustainable.
Leadership equals heroic leadership.
It’s there to save the day / put the fires out.
Heroes don’t scale. So at the moment there’s no more “heroic leader”, things go down south. Quickly.
Leadership equals authority.
They’re both independent from each other.
You can have authority and no leadership (eg. current president of Peru), and leadership with no authority (someone who leads in a relationship group without being the boss).
Leading has this one more factor embedded into it: trust. You can lead others because they trust you (have their best interest in mind). If you break this trust consistently, you stop being a leader.
Leadership is about convincing others.
At best, that’s manipulation.
Just because someone says “Follow me, I know the way”, doesn’t mean they have leadership.
The perspective taken is of “I need to convince them (and even con them) of what *I* want and it doesn’t matter what they think.”
A different view
If you’re open to disregard this kind of conception on leadership and —maybe— adopt this one.
Peter Drucker
When you lift others to higher places —when you elevate others— you lead. And when you lead, you elevate yourself, as a by-product of it.
Be it in your relationships, organizations, working with other experts or in your work with clients.
Think of how you can elevate them.