Who’s leading here? Does it matter?

You Are Not A Leader

Leadership is something people do, not something they are.

One of my favorite mental lists is of words that no one should ever use to describe themselves. This is a good list to keep. There are all sorts of words that a person can use to describe themselves that in so doing either contradict the description, or reflect a real lack of self-awareness. Some of these come from politics (maverick). Many of them come from my working world (innovator, thought-leader, disruptor). And some of them come from a place where it seems wrong to use them to describe one’s self (ally). Recently, I’ve added a new entry to this last category: Leader

You are not a leader.

I appreciate that, depending on your perspective, this might be a hard thing to understand. Most people who read this article will have some amount of leadership responsibility in their working life. Some of that responsibility might be really extensive. It might even be written into your job description. But none of that matters, because in no instance are you a leader. The reason for this is simple: A leader is not who you are, leadership is what you (might) do.

I might be accused here of playing a bit of a language game. Does it really matter if someone in a position of leadership considers themselves to be a leader, as long as…