Leadership is an Opportunity

Leaders have plenty to do, with many obligations, pressures, stresses, and responsibilities. All of these come with the role and the paycheck. While we accept these as facts, often in the daily doing of all the work and accepting all the responsibilities, we forget that leadership is an opportunity. Consider this a gentle reminder or a wake-up call to what leadership can really be.

The Opportunity Help Others

Who can leaders help?

• Their team members. As a leader you have the opportunity to help people succeed in their work, enjoy their work, get promoted, gain confidence, and so much more. If you positively impact those team members you are having a positive impact on their families too. This privilege can be one of the great joys of leadership.
• Their organization. As a leader you help the organization reach its goals. Your contribution to something bigger than yourself is a big opportunity.
• Their Customers. Whether your “customers” are students, patients, internal customers, or paying customers, when you and your team deliver at high levels your work is helping change the lives of those you and your team serves.
• Their communities. Everything you do – the result of all your efforts – can change what happens all around you. And chances are this impact will extend far beyond those you interact with each day.

The Opportunity to Extend Influence

When you throw a pebble into a pond you notice the familiar concentric circles that start at the impact and grow larger as they ripple out from that starting point.  As a leader you put yourself in the water and ripples form.

People often talk about the best leaders as leading by example. That sentiment is correct, but incomplete. All leaders are setting an example. The only question that matters is: are you setting an example you want others to follow?

When we realize that we are influencing through our words, actions, body language, decisions, and everything else, we recognize that we can have a far more positive influence than we might have thought.  It is easy to think that you are just one person, and you are just doing your job.  Both are true, but as a leader you have the opportunity to have an out-sized positive influence on those around you.

The Opportunity to Change the World

Leaders set (or support) a mission, goals, objectives, and a course to achieve them.  Assuming those outcomes are valuable, a leader has the opportunity to change the world for the better.  Nothing positive happens in the world until someone leads.  Some one must step forward, someone see a vision of a desired future, someone must show the way.

The people who do, change the world.

You have the opportunity to be that person.

This is short and incomplete list, yet it makes the point clearly, leadership is an opportunity.  When we joyfully consider these truths, it puts our responsibilities in a new light and hopefully creates hope and energy for us to do our work as leaders with passion and commitment.

As you rush through your activities, meetings and leadership tasks today, see your work in this larger way. When you do that, you will seize even more of the opportunities in front of you.

…..

If you want to seize the opportunity to be a Remarkable Leader, and make an ever-bigger difference around you, consider becoming a member of The Remarkable Way. It is a one month at a time, one skill at a time way to build your leadership skills as you do your work, not by attending long workshops that keep you from your team and work.

To learn more about this relevant, real life approach to building your leadership skills (and to be surprised at how little time it will take from your calendar), check out The Remarkable Way.