Excerpt from a YouTube talk by Simon Sinek ("Leadership Redefined: Helping Others Rise") arguing that leadership is the responsibility to help others rise. Sinek emphasizes that rank alone does not make a leader; human skills (active listening, conflict resolution, giving/receiving feedback) and lifelong learning distinguish effective leaders.
My favorite definition of leadership, which is not dissimilar to yours, which is the awesome responsibility to see those around you rise.
And if you ask yourself, what does that entail? Rank is not the thing that makes you a leader. It allows you to do it more efficiently. But you can see the person next to you rise. That makes you the leader in that team.
The ability to become a good leader and do the things that you're talking about, quite frankly, is the need for human skills. And we under appreciate.
The learning and education of human skills. Things like active listening, things like how to resolve conflict peacefully, things like how to have an effective confrontation. You have to give somebody some like, you have to like, tell somebody, this is not working for me. How do you do that in a way that they'll hear you, how to give and receive feedback. And we don't, we don't learn these things. So if you join a company, the company will give you tons of education. How to sell the product, what the portfolio looks like, how to sell, you know, all of these things. They don't teach us human skills. As we make our way through the ranks, we get promoted because we're good at our jobs. But being good at your job is not what makes you a good leader. Being good leader is what makes you a good leader. Being good at human skills is what makes you a good leader. And all the best leaders I've ever met in every industry who have achieved things that they could say to me, I think I know what I'm doing. Every single one of them consider themselves a student of leadership. None of them think of themselves as expert leaders. They continue to read books, read articles, watch videos, have conversations.
And not only is that humble, but it makes them really good at what they do because they're constantly learning. Would you want to see a doctor who has never attended a conference or read an article since they got their medical degree? No. You want a doctor who's completely up to date on all the new stuff and is constantly learning they're qualified to be the doctor. They got the medical degree. That's not good enough. It's the same for leaders. It's a lifelong leadership. It's a lifelong education to be good at, to be a good leader.
