What real leadership looks like

Old-school management is NOT automatically the same as leadership. Managers can “make” employees perform well under fear, for a limited time at least. But real leadership is based on influence. When a leader creates a vision (or in many cases, co-creates that vision with their team), shows a clear path, models success, and guides employees to do their best work, employees perform because they are bought in to what the leader has envisioned. They are part of something. They are appreciated. They feel safe.

There’s a reason I didn’t say leaders create a family experience. Work isn’t family. And thank goodness for that. I think many people don’t feel appreciated and safe in their families, anyway. Work is different from family, but that doesn’t mean it needs to suck. That doesn’t mean it needs to feel like punishment.

I write a lot about what needs to change in Corporate America, so I’ll keep this brief:

We need a leadership overhaul.

• Too much of what passes for “leadership” is nothing like leadership at all. Here’s why so many managers/leaders are doing it wrong:

• They have no interest in leading and only become managers because they “have to” to get ahead

• They receive no training and/or have no healthy role models for true leadership at their organization

• They believe that their job is to instill fear and to drive teams to deliver “perfection”

• They have little to no self-awareness

We can place much of the blame for this on the highest ranks in Corporate America and corporate culture itself. At the heart of it, most companies devalue management and leadership, or at least they do not have a true understanding of the impact managers/leaders can have - both good and bad. Managers are just thrust into positions without training and support. They aren’t measured by anything other than how many things they finish. Team attrition, advancement, happiness - usually these don’t matter.

I posted about this on the socials yesterday:

It got me thinking: how can we get this leadership overhaul going? Really. What needs to happen? I have some ideas. Certainly, the book I am writing will be part of this. My podcast, too. But I think I need a program or at least some free Live masterclasses. I have something in the works. If you want to follow along, get my newsletter here.