Musings (rants) on Leadership
It is very frustrating that, when societal or business (same same I know) issues arise, rather than solving them, we create industries to assess, evaluate, audit, and report on them. This has occurred - in my mere lifetime - in manufacturing, social and labor practices, environmental and chemical sustainability, and now in leadership. During my professional life, there have been many a prolific leadership coach, author, speaker who are icons based on this. Write about what leadership should be; profess to know what true leadership can unlock; coach myriad professionals on leadership principles and practices. Profess, profess, profess. But instead of fixing an issue, we create yet another industry of money makers on the back of the very issue it is claiming to be able to transform. Erg. What about true leaders? What about true leadership being identified, lauded, recognized and leveraged to train - not through theory, but through tried and true practice. I humbly call myself a leader. Not one without fault and failure, but a leader who has chosen to repeatedly stand in the shoes of others in order to develop the insight and depth of perception into what makes people tick. I have lived the shift in power from being the one who leads to being the one led.
Leading is being a person out loud - all of our glorious shining achievements, our elegance, our eloquence, our big badass selves. Leading is also being our wretched, anxious, fearful, possessive, jealous selves out loud - but having the skill to see this side and to put it secondary to being with all people, moving forward. Everyone we lead can see our warped and weak side - they choose, they decide, to also see it as secondary simply because we have shown it and have shown them how to not be engulfed by it, but to share the lightness of ourselves first. To LEAD with our light.
Instead of having leaders though, we have myriad leadership coaches who talk at impermiable walls of humans who refuse to, who fail to, show their humanity. The dimensions of people are so rich and layered and yet we choose to be spoken TO about how to become leaders vs experimenting and trying to reach into our richness and share what we find with those we are leading.
How many Corporate Execs do we need to read about who steal money, steal the lives of their employees, who extort, molest, cheat, short-change, and who let companies fail while they save their own ass for soley financial reasons? Robbing overtime, stealing vacations, unwavering on flex time, insisting employees conform to a 19th century version of a compliant, near-impoverished indentured servant, these Corporate “icons”, “magnates” have made their names on the exploitation of people. Of workers. People are ‘workers’. They are not mothers, fathers, friends, creatives, thinkers - all who provide intellectual and emotional challenge and affinity, but who represent a threat to the survival of the LEADER.
I believe one is not, and never will be, a leader unless one is also a follower. Have you ever had to report into someone who previously reported into you? Try it. It will fundamentally and foundationally change your view of leadership. Until and unless real people decide to flip the power structure, the power structure will never be changed. I think ture leadership requires humility - and humility is in short supply across the power brokering. The Simon Senek’s of the world can make a good living talking at leaders about what they should and could do. It is only when they are confronted what they WOULD do when the power structure tips the other way that they will know if they actually have the capacity and ability to be a true leader.