Your Title Is Not Who You Are. (Especially as a leader.)
There are those with titles that imply responsibility, and those who actually act upon a responsibility. Ideally, they’re the same person.
Unfortunately, they often aren’t.
One of my concerns with our common narrative around leadership is that it is implied someone is a leader if they have the right title, and that someone isn’t if they don’t have that title.
Two overarching paradigms then emerge here on what a leader is.
One, where someone in a leadership position is a leader…
And another, where being a leader and being in a leadership position are not the same thing.
Let’s label these two different perspectives for clarity.
I call the former the Superficial Leadership Perspective. This is the more traditional view that someone in a leadership position is a leader, by virtue of their position. If the position requires you to act like a leader, then do you become one? Arguably.
I’ve named the latter the Intrinsic Leadership Perspective. This is my view that being a leader is deeper than any role or title. If we only act like a leader when a role requires us to, are we able to bring that essence out into the world where it needs it most, in all the little moments?
Consider this: Someone in a leadership role, say a boss at a company, actively acts like a great leader at work. But, because the energy to be as such isn’t coming from deep within, it’s forced, so doing it tires them out. Then, they come home, and are terrible to their partner and children, and those leadership skills aren’t of use to anyone outside of that company.
Is that person a leader? Or are they just feigning it to get their paycheck?
I’d argue that we have too much of that Superficial Leadership Perspective going around.
We start from the outside, and then hope the inside will change. In so doing, we create stressed people in leadership positions, which affect everything from families, to social and justice issues, to politics and geopolitics.
You’ve been on the receiving end of bad leaders. So tell me, if they were great leaders within first, would their leadership have been so poor as to cause whatever challenges they caused in your life?
Pericles, the ancient Greek leader, once said “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” This eternal wisdom shines a beautiful spotlight on what it means to be a leader within, regardless of the title or expectations placed on you by the external world.
Someone who impacts others wonderfully, shows up as a person who is a leader consistently, is joyous in their giving to others and does so lovingly - those are the real inspirations to me.
I dive a lot more into this in the In Search of Leaders initial exploration, but for this week I want to leave you with this thought:
Are you going to leave your most joyous and courageous mark on others, regardless of your title or how they perceive you? Because that would make a truly incredible leader indeed.
Lots of love, and here’s to your success! - Seven
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About Seven
Hey friends! I’m Seven - I write about challenges and opportunities affecting leaders across business. I release a weekly newsletter and a podcast, helping folks understand the leadership journeys and challenges out there, so we can better understand our purpose, place, and potential. The goal: to learn about what it means to be a leader, to support leaders, to find leaders, and to discover the leader within.
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Lots of love, and here’s to your success!