Leading By The Book Leadership Education

As I talk to professionals, one prevalent theme is the idea that even though they want to, they can’t or shouldn’t lead; that somehow they’re unworthy of a leadership role. These are professionals of all types: young and old, educated and uneducated, introverted and extroverted. The list goes on.

Let’s be abundantly clear. You – yes you – can lead. You need to lead. You DESERVE to lead. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. There’s no mold for what a leader must be. There’s no contract – written or otherwise – that says that if you don’t meet a certain criteria that you can’t lead.

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At some point, no matter how driven, focused, or downright stubborn you are, you will see your confidence take a hit. Everyone, even the strongest leaders, deals with this from time to time. This loss of confidence can be killer as we seek to lead by example and set the tone for our team.

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Lately, when explaining their process of decision-making, I’ve heard quite a few highly intelligent individuals state that they ask themselves “why do I know I’m right?” It’s a useful question, and a great part of the process of clarifying one’s thinking by removing the emotion of the situation. Sure, there are things we want to be true, and we do a damn good job convincing ourselves that they are; unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that they actually are true.

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A few days back, the following quote on success from Marcus Aurelius, one of the great stoic philosophers, showed up in my inbox. Comparing people to rocks he said “it loses nothing by coming down and gained nothing by going up.” Seemingly everything Aurelius said is a leadership gem, but this one stood out because we talk so much about leading teams to success, but we rarely talk about what to do when we get there.

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Time and time again, I write the same phrase: time is the ultimate wealth. For good reason too; it’s the one thing that we can never get back, give back, or make more of. It’s our most finite and precious resource, so we need to be massively careful with how we spend it.

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