Striking "Leader" from My Lexicon

In my previous post, I fleshed out some thinking about leadership and that it is really about individuals having the disposition and skills to create the conditions that engage people in creating change.

Well guess what? Anyone can do that?

When we talk of "leaders," it so often conjures notions of power, position, and responsibility. All of these are notions that too often are built on scarcity. There are only so many hierarchical positions at the top of the organization. Power is held by those who can make financial and resource decisions that affect others. Responsibility is something we are granted and then must be accountable for.

Did you notice that all of these have an underlying theme of control and gatekeeping. Someone (or someones) or a system allows a person to have these things. Well, gatekeeping is the result of scarcity thinking - we only have to gate-keep when we feel there isn't enough for everyone, or worse, others are not worthy. Additionally, power, position, and responsibility are external to the person and therefore out of their full control.

"Leadership" is internal. It is disposition and skills. It is the ability to identify a change you want to see in the future, determine what it will take to engage others in making that change a reality, and then taking the iterative steps that create those conditions.

This gets me right back to "anyone can do this." And the better you get at it, the more people will engage and the more change that will occur as a result of your efforts. You don't need power, position, or responsibility (but be careful, you might get some...)

When we talk of organizational leaders we conjure scarcity. When we talk of organizational leadership, that is abundant.

So goodbye leaders, hello people with leadership capacity!