Leadership Is Serving The Needs Of The People You Lead; It Is Not Promoting Your Own Agenda

Taking on a role that requires you to lead others means your own needs and agendas must move to the bottom of your list of importance.

Some would say that we are in the war with Iraq based on Bush’s own agenda rather than the needs and desires of America. Is this true? Unless you have some inside view into Bush’s mind that I don’t have I’d have to say we don’t know. But the perception is that he seized the opportunity to finish something his father started. This has made him unpopular with the masses.

Think back a couple of years to the Enron executives to remember what happens in a business when the leaders of that business begin to focus on their own wants and desires. I’m sure these executives did not begin their roles the way they ended, focusing only on themselves and their gains. This loss of focus on the needs of the people you serve can be a slow insidious process.

Watching our new national presidential hopefuls we might want to ask ourselves; will they listen to our needs as a nation? Or are they more interested in their own desires and meeting their own agendas?

This takes us to our own local political candidates, managers in business and business owners. When you choose to move into a role that gives you the honor of leading others then your needs, wants and desires can no longer be at the forefront. Rather, serving the needs of the people you lead is now your responsibility.

Leadership is about their needs not your own while getting to your role as a political or business leader is about you and your leadership abilities.

It‘s about your personal growth and development. It is you learning how to lead so people want to follow you. It’s about knowing how your leadership style affects others and how you come across. It’s also about your interactions skills, presentation skills, your ethics, and your ability to build trust and relationship with others.

Do you talk too fast for them to understand you? Do you ramble on and lose them? How do you personally present yourself? What is the energy around you and that you bring into a room? Are you authentic? Do you lead from a place of inner strength or do you lead from a place of inner fear and lack of self confidence? Are individuals comfortable in your presence? Do you use good listening skills?

These characteristics are just a few of many that you as a leader, regardless of your role, political, business, management, team, or family, need to cultivate. If you want people to follow you then developing and using these skills is a necessity not a luxury.

These skills are about personal growth and development and you NEVER arrive. Let me say that again, you never get there. Hopefully, you get better when you make the choice to increase your leadership abilities by taking opportunities to learn and grow but you never get there. Getting there implies perfection and none of us are perfect, we are all becoming.

When you choose being a leader as your life’s role then it’s also your responsibility to be continuously growing, changing, learning and becoming.

Hard but also exciting facts! And unless you are willing to take on this continuous growth process then you might want to reconsider your desire to be in your leadership role.