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January 27, 2009By David Lennard
Too many people think that leadership is a switch that is either always on or always off. The truth is that you have the power to turn the switch on and off when you want to. All it takes is the “courage” and belief in yourself and your ideas. No one leads all the time and people that think they can or should be leading all the time usually end up as unbearable to deal and rarely accomplish very much.
The first place to start is with a small moment of courage. I am not talking about the courage that it takes to jump from an airplane for the first time, this can be a tiny moment when you choose to speak up, make a comment to a proposal or challenge something you know is the wrong thing to do. Think about your past moments of courage and the success you have had. Courage builds from having comfort in what you know and what you have achieved.
Always remember that you don’t have to be in charge to provide leadership. Leadership can be a moment when your words or ideas change the path forward for your work team or a volunteer group you work with. Clark Johnson, former CFO of Johnson & Johnson, said that if you knew the answer to a question or issue and failed to speak up than you made the biggest mistake in the room. Remember, sometimes you can take a bigger risk by doing nothing.
Many of us have to deal constantly with our fears. Fear of failure, fear of being embarrassed, fear of loss of job or position. Courage is being willing to speak up in spite of your fears because you have something to contribute to the greater good. Remember that every triumph and failure soon passes. Successful people in any field have found their success not because they were always right, it’s because when they made mistakes, they learned from them and then keeping moving forward. Courage is as simple as being “knocked down”, getting back up and taking one more step forward.
So the next time you find yourself thinking, “I don’t think that’s right for us. Why isn’t anyone speaking up?” you have a leadership opportunity. Gather your courage and be the person who speaks up. Each time you do this it gets a little easier. Eventually people will start to look to you for your contribution, and they will be looking at you as a leader.
1 person has left a comment
I completely agree! Demonstrating leadership and being strong in small moments is difficult, but so rewarding in the long run. I recently had to stick up for my group and say ‘no, for now’ when everyone else was jumping on a certain ‘initiative bandwagon’. I knew we’d be involved in some capasity in the future, but the current information I was given was very unclear, and I could’t risk the progress we’ve made to date. So I tried to be strong and gain sponsorship for my position, and so far so good. Sometimes we idealize Leadership as a grand event, involving a cast of thousands, but in reality it is having a pulse on what is going on around you and sticking with what is right versus what is popular. Thank you for this article.