Finding the answers to these three questions: Are leaders born or developed? Where does leadership start and end? Is it exhausting being a leader?
The Leader Myths
It is an idea that has been passed on by previous generations that only people in certain positions and roles in life are our leaders. Then there’s the rest of us, and all we do is follow and obey. And we’re so good at it that we even follow and obey people who aren’t leaders and couldn’t lead their way around to the other side of the bed.
Let’s not talk about the hopeless, and in history often tragic, leadership qualities and abilities of these so called leaders. Nor shall we dwell upon our reasons for being such excellent followers of flawed individuals, and what it was exactly that we latched onto.
Generally speaking, the two key failings of the first paragraph are that we probably never defined clearly enough what is meant by leadership, and that we fell into the trap of: we’ve always done it that way.
The answers to the three questions are these:
Leaders are born – we are all born – we are all leaders.
There was no start date to our leadership, we were born with it inside us. There is no end date.
Yes, leadership is exhausting.
There is no real start date to leadership, or there shouldn’t have been, but then we created one. Before explaining this, there is also no end date. It is another misaligned idea that leadership relates to the workplace, and that somehow it is only when you are in a managerial or executive position, that you are really considered to be a leader. Yes, we have team leaders and department heads and more senior team members, but they’re not “really” in a leadership position are they – rubbish! And so the story goes that it is only when you are in this leadership position, doing this leadership stuff, that you are being a leader, and when you go home you are no longer in a leadership role – rubbish. Oh, and by the way, don’t start getting all preppy and proud of yourself and thinking that this doesn’t apply to you because when you get home you definitely lead. Being a control freak and demanding that everything happens the way that you want it to is not leadership!
The Perfect Leader
When you were born you arrived into the world as a piece of perfection, all geared and ready for action, very much like a Formula 1 racing car on the starting grid in pole position. For this car to make it to that position requires that every nut and bolt is torqued to the correct tension, a streamlined chassis, special tyres, and specific types of oil and fuel. That’s you when you were born: torqued connectors, chassis, and tyres – your body; fuel – what you consume, your energy source; oil – your thoughts and what keeps everything going smoothly. You are a small piece of perfection, in every way, with a deep sense of knowing what is right and wrong, and a compassionate acceptance of everyone and everything out there, a bundle of fun and joy.
Then life happens to you. From the earliest stages of your development, you are fed all sorts of thoughts and ideas by the voices of authority that came into your life, parents, family, teachers, church leaders, and more. You started to create your own thoughts and ideas from these inputs as well as from what the media spouts into your senses, as well as the people and relationships that you were involved with. This is the dirty and wrong oil that you put into our minds. You eat and drink plenty of junk and don’t look after your body, the wrong fuel. This then causes your vehicle to start becoming unmanageable to drive, and to start bouncing and slewing across the road. The end result is that it becomes too hard to control and you take your hands off the steering wheel. You stopped driving your own life and you allowed life, and other people, to drive you. You lost your individuality, and you started to follow.
Why do you follow certain people, I mean really follow, and hang on every word that they say, why?
It gets worse …
The Real You
Whilst you are on your bumpy ride through life you may well still have your hands on the steering wheel but what is this life that you are driving, and who are you driving it for? What you have done, as a result of all the external inputs that have been bombarding your senses day in and day out, is that you have created a persona for yourself and built a fortress around it, your ego. You then send out your five senses to find only the things that will support your fortress walls and make them stronger. You fail to see or ignore all other sensory inputs that are out there, and woe betide anyone or anything that doesn’t support your model if you do happen to come into contact with them or it.
You have built a persona and a fortress around someone that isn’t the real you. You have forgotten who you really are.
Why then have some people become leaders in the world and not you? It is because they had different architects providing the design for the persona and fortresses that they built. When they were born, and deep inside, they are exactly the same as you. They gathered some inputs, one of which was leadership, believed it about themselves, built it into their fortress walls, and then pursued it. You have done the same, with other things, but not with leadership, not yet.
Being a Leader
The final point towards reassuring you that you really are a leader in your own right is the answer to the last of the three questions. Yes, leadership is exhausting. The reason for this has been shown to me many, many times. I have participated in a wide variety of sports, quite obsessively, including some big endurance multi-day running events. It always surprised me though that the one sport that made me feel the most exhausted afterwards was … playing a game of golf. I’m sure that you are surprised.
The thing is, yes, I have often been exhausted from physical activity, but this is nothing compared to mental exhaustion. If you really want to play a great game of golf, no matter what your level of expertise is, you will always do your best if you are able to concentrate 100% for every shot. This is enormously tiring, and for most of us not always possible.
And this applies to leadership, and to you, because the one factor above all else that defines what leadership is, is this: leadership is not about doing things, it is about being. This is all about the mental side and thinking side of being the person that you really are. When you fall into being that person, the good and correct physical activities and behaviours follow naturally.
Conclusion
To be a leader you simply need to be who you are.
Find out who you really are.
You are that perfect person that was born that day, exactly the same as everyone else.
You are a leader.
A return to innocence.
This blog would not be complete without providing the lyrics to the song of the same name by Enigma
ENIGMA – RETURN TO INNOCENCE
Don’t be afraid to be weak
Don’t be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence
The return to innocence
And if you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don’t hide
Just believe in destiny
Don’t care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don’t give up and use the chance
To return to innocence
That’s not the beginning of the end
That’s the return to yourself
The return to innocence