Leadership is important. I mean really, really, really, REALLY important.
The leadership expert John Maxwell says simply, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
Everything??? Yes, everything!
So what determines your team rising or falling? You, the leader.
That’s why leadership is soooooo important. Great leadership raises everyone higher while bad leadership sends everyone crashing.
A Good and Bad Leadership Example
Here’s an example to depict the power of great leaders and the impact of bad leaders.
- Team 1: This team has a great leader but the team is a low performing team.
- Team 2: This team has a great team but the leader is a bad leader.
What’s going to happen?
- Team 1 will have some challenges. They will be limited in their success and the leader will be constrained in leading the team to the destination he/she wants as quickly as he/she wants.
- Team 2 will have far more challenges. The bad leader won’t just limit and constrain the team, the bad leader will inevitably lead the team to destruction and failure.
Constrained and limited success is better than destruction and failure!
But do you know what?
- Over time the great leader on Team 1 will turn their low performing team into a high performing team, because that’s what great leaders do – they raise the level of their team.
- The same can not be said about Team 2 because there is no way for a great team to turn a bad leader into a great leader. It’s just not possible because that’s what bad leaders do – they lower the level of their team.
Leaders Have The Power To Change Everything
Leadership can be the key that unlocks potential, opportunity, greatness, and success. Great leadership creates, enables, releases, develops, produces, grows, and builds. Great leadership leads to flourishing and thriving.
Or leadership can be the key that leads to the dungeon of despair, demotivation, and destruction. Bad leadership prevents, knocks down, blows up, sets back, and depresses. Bad leadership leads to hurt people and failing teams.
This is why leadership is so important.
Your team members’ careers are impacted by you. You directly impact their lives. This is why your leadership ability matters so much. Are you a great leader? Is your team flourishing and thriving? Are they rising and succeeding? Do you realize how important your role is?
Leadership is the key to teams, people, and companies rising or falling, thriving or failing.
Great leadership leads to flourishing and thriving. Bad leadership leads to hurt people and failing teams. Share on XOne more thing. Do you think you’re more important than your team members? Even though being a leader is really important, great leaders don’t look at themselves as more important than their team members. They actually count their team members as more significant than themselves. Great leaders are servants and lead as a service to their team members. They come to serve, not to be served, because great leaders serve first.
Leadership Is Important, Hard, And Awesome
If you’re not aware of how important your job is as a leader, let all of this sink in deep. Don’t take your role lightly! Give your leadership role the respect it deserves and know how important it is. Your team members are counting on you.
As a result, this does bring great responsibility and pressure for you to be a great leader. This may be scary or intimidating because being a leader is hard!
But the good news is that it’s totally worth it because being a leader is awesome!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay