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I am often asked for a definition of leadership. People tend to like to define things so they are easier to understand. I just Googled ‘definition of leadership’ and I got 271 million search results. As you know, I like to keep things simple and straightforward, so here’s the one I use.
Leadership is ‘positive influence’.
Years ago I read a book by Robin Sharma called ‘The Leader Who Had No Title’. It greatly influenced the way I think about leadership. In the book Robin makes the point that you don’t need a title or position to lead. Anyone can ‘positively influence’ others.Think about this for a minute. Many people (maybe even you) think that leadership is not their concern as they aren’t the boss (or don’t have a title). But what if we all adopted the concept of leadership being positive influence? That would mean that everyone in your organisation could be a leader. Everyone could focus on positively influencing everyone else. In my mind, that would be a game changer.
Who can you lead, or positively influence? If you have people reporting to you, what can you do to positively influence them? What about your peers or even your manager? Certainly you could focus on positively influencing your customers and even suppliers.
Just imagine what your organisation would be like if everyone was focused on positively influencing everyone else!
What can you do today to positively influence those around you?