It's Not Hard To Be A Leader

Dear Younger Me,

You’ve always desired to be a leader. From the day you understood what a leader was you tried to be one. A leader in the classroom. A leader on the sports field. A leader amongst your peers.

Something that blinded your desire to lead, however, was how easy it was to become a leader.

What I am here to tell you is that it is not that hard to become a leader. Truthfully, everyone will eventually lead someone in something.

If you stay at a company for a long time, you will lead a team. If you are a teacher you will lead a classroom. If you play a sport you will eventually become a senior and lead underclassmen.

It is not that hard to become a leader, but it is REALLY HARD to be a GREAT leader.

Do you see the difference? Becoming a leader is easy. Becoming a great leader is hard.

It is a small, but very significant difference. Why would anyone become anything if they were not trying to be great at it? You want to be a great leader, right?

Well, greatness only comes to those that are hyper-aware of what it takes to be great. Younger me, in the next few years you will have the opportunity to lead some pretty unique groups of people. Successful sports teams, influential college groups, and a small team of highly capable business students. With all of these opportunities, you need to know this one very important truth:

The best leaders are the best at winning people over.

It is not that the leader always makes the best choices, or never hurts someone's feelings, or never messes up. All the great leaders have burned a bridge, lost money on a bad investment, or done many other things much worse than they could have done.

Despite all these shortcomings, no one seems to bat an eye at their leadership. Why? The people that judge have been won over. They’ve been influenced. They’ve entrusted.

Younger me, you will burn bridges. You will make bad investments. You can do many things much better than how you will do them. Yet, if you are purposeful about winning others over, you will still be a great leader despite your shortcomings.

Winning others over can be measured by if you have positively influenced them enough to look past your shortcomings and trust you to lead them. I do not have the answers to how best to do it, but have found one great way to measure your influence:

Think of the people you lead. Could you confidently go around and give every single one of them a hug?

Hugs mean trust. Hugs mean “I see you.” Hugs mean vulnerability.

Can you hug your followers? I hope someday you will.

All the best,

Older You