Success Strategies: Expectation Of Leadership

Success Strategies

What success strategies do you have in place for your life or for your business right now? In our business, we have 5 underlying strategies for success that we refer to as: ‘The 5 Pillars Of Success’. These are 5 fundamental underlying principles that act as a sort of daily ‘success checklist’ by which we run our business and our lives. One of those success strategies is ‘The Expectation Of Leadership In Yourself And Others’. Think about this for a moment. Our whole life, in all the various roles in which we find ourselves, we expect, and demand, leadership in others. As a child, we don’t so much expect, we naturally assume that our parents will be our leaders. At school, we expect out teachers to be leaders. We probably all had at least one teacher who did not live up to that expectation and got a really hard time as a result. Kids do not suffer fools gladly. As adults, in every single one of our daily transactions there is an expectation of leadership. We expect the boss to lead the company. We expect the shop assistant to ‘be in charge’ for us so that we can select and pay for our goods. We expect the bank clerk to lead us through the transaction. And we expect that the bank will be on top of its finances, and that we will get a letter notifying us when we have gone overdrawn and charging us for the privilege! Every day we expect leadership in others. But what of the leadership we expect in ourselves? If we expect those around us to be in leadership for us, shouldn’t we be expecting leadership in ourselves also? Shouldn’t we be demanding that we are the role model and thus paving the way for others to follow?

Now I know that there are many different definitions of leadership.  Let me take a moment here to define what I mean by leadership. To lead, for me, is to be in service for others. Leadership means service. Leadership demands respect. And respect has nothing to do with ‘like’. As I was growing up, I spent years wanting everybody to ’like’ me. When I became a manager in my first job, I thought that if everybody liked me I would have their respect and they would ‘do as I said’. Unsurprisingly, I was dreadful in the role. In fact it was probably the worst, most stressful job I ever had, because I was so bad at it. It took me a long time to realise that ’respect’ has nothing to do with ‘like’. And similarly, ‘Leadership’ has nothing to do with ‘telling people how to do something’. It has everything to do with empowering them to do things for themselves.  Great leaders appear at different times. It is almost as if the world is drawn to certain people at certain times for the service they can provide at that particular moment in history. Churchill was a hugely respected war-time leader, who had the support of his country when it needed him most. But after the war, he was not re-elected. He was a ‘leader’ for the period that his services were required. Intuitively we are drawn to the great leaders of the world: Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela. Even more modern day ‘mere mortals’, such as Sir Bob Geldof are recognised for the leadership that they brought and the service that they provided at a certain time.

So what has all of this got to do with you? With me? With all of us? Leadership starts with respecting ourselves enough to be of service to ourselves. We need to show up every day in our lives and in our businesses and give both of them the respect they deserve. ‘If it is to be, it is up to me’.  More importantly, we all know that we cannot help other people before we help ourselves. So the next time you are standing in line at the bank or cussing the traffic warden for leaving a ticket on your car, ask yourself this: Do you stand in leadership for yourself and others in EVERY area of your life EVERY single day? If you do, congratulations, I can guarantee that your life, your business is thriving at the moment. But if not, before you point the finger of blame at somebody else, remember that every time we point a finger, three more are pointing back at us.

Wishing you every success in life and business.

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