Leadership! What does it mean to lead? Before exploring how to lead on an individual level, let’s first explore from a higher level, as in leadership of nations and the world. To better understand world leadership, this week I started reading a book that shares a couple chapters on how countries like the United States and Great Britain have ruled the world. Today, it is the United States.
How has the United States maintained its leadership? There are a couple components of leadership that clearly helped the United States maintain leadership after World War Two. One of these components is making a directed effort to protect your people from opponents who threaten their livelihood. The U.S. has protected free trade via the U.S. Navy globally since after World War Two.
The other component of leadership we'll explore is support. The United Stares has financially supported several countries recovery in the last century, especially after World War Two. Like starting a business requires investment from others, so does a country require investment to grow.
While having funding jump starts growth in countries, businesses and individuals, I will first qualify that, of course, the country/business/individual can grow with investment from its people. However, when introducing funding from other sources, the countries/business/individual can find greater success. The easiest way to see how investment stimulates growth is to see it personally. One example of this is getting a loan for a home. Loans provide people with the ability to live a life that they have not yet earned, based on the principle that they are trustworthy and financially sound. Without the loan, it would take decades for young people to move into a home, but with the loan, people can move in after obtaining a down payment, and grow their financial goals more quickly.
A good leader in all contexts most certainly requires these two qualities: to be defensive and supportive of its people. On an individual level this manifests more in words and action, than with cash and bullets as is present in the national level. Leadership means protecting people. When someone is down and asks for help, the leader's job is to remind the of who they are, and that they are capable of anything. Leadership also means support, like taking action towards helping your people achieve their goals. For example if your friend wants to run a golf tournament, you help him coordinate and work out a plan for how to make that happen.
This kind of "supportive" leadership is different from olden times where people had a boss who told them what to do. We can see this manifest as the difference between Britain's leadership and the United States' leadership. Britain set policies, taxes, and other controls on its colonies and basically said "deal with it", like how an older boss might give you work and then tell you to "deal with it". Similar to how Britain was overthrown, the older boss is now being overthrown in favor of the new age leader. We'll see why in the next couple paragraphs.
Something I’m grateful for in the last year has been witnessing servant leadership. A servant leader works with his/her people and makes sure everybody has what they need to get the job done. The leader takes on the higher level details, and works hard to make sure everything is accounted for with the help of his/her support. This is leadership that is long lasting.
The benefit of adopting this leadership style over the older “boss” style is that your people will love you, and instead of building a dictatorship, you’ve built a community of like-minded people. It’s beautiful really. Certainly greater productivity because people know they share a cause and can take ownership of their role instead of being told what to do. Because of these advantages, this new system will overshadow the older system by natural process. Evolve or die, as always. The quicker people adopt it, the more likely their business is to succeed in this new world built on love and fueled by healthy competition with other communities.
“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” —Kenneth Blanchard
It’s a new day, and always good day to change your habits, build your community and work for a brighter future.