If you are a leader and having a tough time motivating others, ponder the following quote:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Most employed individuals have a “boss”, which by definition is a a positional leader… that’s to say, people follow what he/she says, because they have to, otherwise, there would be undesired consequences.
At Success-Starts-Today.com, when we talk about leadership, we are not referring to positional leaders. Instead, we are referring to a different kind of leader… the kind of leadership that influences people, guides them, motivates them, and keeps them focused… which, in reality, is the most important kind of leadership.
If you are “the boss”, do employees get their jobs done, because you remind them that you’re the boss and they must follow what you say? Or do they feel they are part of a team, they believe in you, your mission, and the common goals and objectives?
In other words, are they influenced by you because they have to or because they choose to?
Good leadership skills are highly desirable, but are unfortunately rare to find. As a result, even if you are not a positional leader and think of yourself as just an employee, having good leadership skills will help you influence others and make you shine.
It is quite an amazing feeling when you come up with a novel idea, then you realize that a successful established company is pursuing the same idea. While it may sound discouraging or you may feel “scooped”, I think it is very rewarding when you feel that you came up with the same idea… or that the idea you generated is of the same caliber as an idea generated by successful industry leaders.
Which makes me think… there are two kinds of people: innocent bystanders/observers and there are impact players. Impact players do things, come up with ideas, start new ventures that others (bystanders/observers) read about. Generally speaking, entrepreneurs are impact players, because they try to capitalize on (their) existing knowledge to develop a new context, market, product, or service.
Are you an impact player? Do you act like one?
