The last few weeks have led me to serious thoughts about what it means to be a leader. Leadership is something you have to want. Furthermore, leadership is something you have to believe you can do successfully. In my work life there are many leadership opportunities. I’ve had occasion to be a leader at different levels and bear the scars of the effort. Not all of my attempts were successful. I learned more from my failures than I did from success, because when I failed it was made clear to me what I did wrong. When I am successful nobody tells me what I am doing right. They are simply not angry, and that is my reward for a job well done. I’ve learned from this practice that leadership is largely thankless activity that one ought to do because it is the right thing to do and because you are the best suited for the position. You can’t do it for any overinflated since of glory or personal value or even for the money. All of that factors into why people want to be leaders and the difficult part for me has been separating these parts out and reflecting on why I want the things I want.
The biggest question is do I want to lead and why? I do want to lead. Some of it is ego. I see myself as a leader and have since my earliest memory of myself. So, in a way being a leader is what I expect of myself and what I gear myself for. On the other hand, it feels like a responsibility. I also think that my strength is my creativity. Being a leader creates the opportunity to express that creativity. On the other hand it means involving others in the creative process and having the organizational skills/structure to implement and to delegate. Anyone who’s read my blog longer than a week knows this is a weakness. All of this leads to the question: Can I be comfortable not leading?
There is going to be a time in the next few years where I have to step back from the leadership role I’m in and my primary concern is that I won’t have a voice to express myself once that happens. This is probably not how things will go, but the fear of it drives this blog—as does the fear of letting go of what I continue to work so hard to build. I guess the best any of us can do is put our soul into the things we do and know that we’ve done everything in our power. That work—that effort—has to be able to stand on its own after we’re gone.