Leadership is simple – Inspiring and helping a group of people to achieve a common goal

Keep things simple

Leadership? Not the twilight zone

Each one of us can lead. It doesn’t require you to be charismatic, extremely bright, or having a senior role. Leadership requires you to bring value to the team by adding to the common purpose.

On sailing boats, the visionaries are typical personas, the archetype of the hero with the sword and cape that we are all conditioned to admire.

More often than not, in organizations transitioning from the visionary leader, the Steve Job’s and Welch’s, to synergists is more realistic and valuable. Most times, it’s just a matter of actively stop playing the hero character.

Effective leadership is about small stuff, the numerous baby steps that allow achieving great things. Most transformation happens on a foundation of broad, consistent objectives.

One critical point here is avoiding bubble managers. These folks make people unhappy and bring little or no value to the pool. Some signs for spotting bubble managers are:

  1. Managing by not sharing essential information at the right time;
  2. Not willing to challenge the status quo when the team needs;
  3. Putting their interests upfront of the teams;
  4. Not being looked like someone, the team, can trust their fragilities;
  5. Not sharing the common purpose that makes the team strive and successful;
  6. Placed in the organization hierarchy distant from influencing the vision and strategy and also distant from the field and facts.

On a crew, the bubble leader is usually the overlord that bosses around, telling others what, when, and how to do their tasks.

This leadership style is dangerous, unhealthy, drops team performance and motivation. Consequently, the real purpose, the why, is further and further away from the team’s daily activities. As a result, abstraction settles in, accountability drops, and complacency controls the operational model.

Reflecting on the key behaviors that we need to master to inspire others to be the best versions of themselves every day, I come up with two — not rocket science.

  1. Don’t manage others. Instead, inspire people that surround you to be better and happier every day. Oh, and yes, manage yourself, manage your productivity, manage your work priorities, manage crises that can affect your crew.
  2. Strive to work well with other souls around you. Be helpful. Put yourself in other people’s shoes – for real. Learn and perfect the ability to handle challenging conversations, avoiding big crises. Communicate clearly and value diverse people, people who think differently, and add something to the discussion.

If, along the away, failure and frustration come along, accept it.

Keeping ourselves true to our values, experience, and to what we think is the right thing to do enables us to rise again from a unique place – the one we stand… or probably… sit, right now.