I was looking through some leadership and management lesson plans from 10 years ago.  I wasn’t just strolling down memory lane….I was on a mission.  My sergeant (knowing my teaching history) asked me to send some leadership/supervisory training material to her.

My sergeant is doing a great job (from my perspective), particularly for a first year supervisor.  And when, as a boss you wanna learn more, this is a good thing.  But I digress.

As I looked through my old work, I was reminded of some leadership fundamentals that I just take for granted.  I assume everybody knows what I know.  The truth is good leadership can be a scarce commodity.

To me the definition of leadership is simple:

Leadership = Influence

I know there are many more complex definitions of leadership, but I think there is more profundity in simplicity.  Either that, or I’m just a simple guy.

Reading back over my teaching notes and looking at my slides I see an obvious connection between attitude and leadership.

So you know, I define attitude as:

The perspective or lens you use to view the world.

Here’s the slide that jumped out at me:

I know effective leadership is “Esteem based” not “Ego based”, yet how many times do I let my ego get in my way of being effective?  Don’t answer, it’s too many times.

It happened recently. I didn’t feel supported in an issue at work this week (Not involving my sergeant, to be clear).  As I worked through the issue, I know I wasn’t as effective as I could have been because I had a ‘need to be right’.  My ego got in the way.  Good thing I’m still learning and growing as a human….

When I was about 16 or 17 years old a boss told me “To be a good leader you must have a big ego”.  In hindsight, I think he was just trying to justify his huge ego because he was the boss.

I think what my slide really refers to what is called ‘servant leadership‘.  It’s the opposite of ‘power driven’ leadership.

I’m no expert, but I know it when I experience it.  And I hope it’s something I demonstrate it on occasion.   It’s a living example of Ziglar’s “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want”.

Servant leadership requires working for the greater good.  As a public servant I know this.  Now if I can only live what I know!

Of course, your mileage may vary.

Dr Jay