Leadership is a funny thing and honestly, most “leaders” or managers of people get it completely wrong. We have this vision of a leader in our society of these hard-nosed,hard-charging, yelling and screaming “get it done” type people. These are called the Heroic Leaders and these are the leaders we have learned about since school like Teddy Roosevelt, George Patton and Andrew Jackson. While at times our world needs these types of leaders, most businesses do not, nor do leading by fear and threats resonate in today’s society. Most businesses actually need a quiet leader who can execute a plan, manage personalities and bring a group of people together to solve complex issues. So let’s talk more about how to Lead with Confidence.
A quote from Hillel the Elder says “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?” embodies the question being asked in my opinion. We must be confident in ourselves first, but at the same time we must put others needs before ours and elevate the group to be an effective leader. You have to trust the people you are leading through building a relationship with them and then empower them to take the necessary actions for success. This makes you a leader without arrogance, and what truly matters is what is going on in the background to be successful, not who gets credit for this or that.
Then finally to have the ability to be confident in the face of that succession of decision making, you need to have a backup plan and look at what the long term goal is. In fact, I would say a confident leader not only have one back up plan but several different visions of how the outcome might look if things don’t go according to plan A, Plan B or so on. Cover your bases by doing the long term planning and let the steps and successes along the way be in the hands of those you work with.
Written for Printwear Magazine