Be a leader
by Miki SaxonLeadership is a strange and wonderful thing. It’s elusive, hard to define.
The best description of leadership I’ve found comes from Lao Tzu, who succinctly refutes the concept of an imperial-styled leader.
In 1915, Theodore MacManus wrote an ad that appeared just once in the Saturday Evening Post. Called The Penalty of Leadership, it was a discourse on the attacks and enmity earned by being a true leader—and it still resonates today.
R. J. House defined “leadership” organizationally and narrowly as “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members”
Notice that nowhere is there an indication of the level of the leader; each speaks to what a leader does, as opposed to the position a leader holds.
Being a boss, at any level, doesn’t make you a leader; developing the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy) of a leader, and implementing it, requires hard work, not proclamations.
Go on—be a leader.