I said, "Yes, why?"
She responded, "Well, you used to have a uni-brow, but you don't anymore."
I love my mom.
I know that leadership is something most of us hear an awful lot about. It is something that is especially important to me. However, there are some things about leadership that I have discovered recently, and I have thus decided to spew my new-found knowledge out to the world. I shall now present a few common misconceptions about leadership.
To be a leader, you need to be in charge.
While leadership is a skill that is definitely needed to be in charge, you don't need to be in charge to be a leader. In fact, in most instances of leadership, you will not be in charge. Take authors, for instance, or musicians. The books we read and the music we listen to lead our thoughts and feelings, and thus the authors and musicians are leading us. Jane Austen did not, (At least to my knowledge) lead an army, rally together a rebellion, or found a religion. She did, however, influence the hearts, minds, and souls of millions to do, be, or think something different than before. I have discovered that that is what leadership is: Influence a person to do, think, or be something that they were not doing before.
Leaders are more valuable than everybody else.
They aren't. If the entire Revolutionary War was fought be George Washington alone, well....America would still be scraping the bottoms of England's feet. There were thousands upon thousands of key players in the Revolutionary War, and for all we know, George Washington might not have been the most important. We just think he is.
In my wonderfully personal opinion, leaders exist because everyone else is incredibly important. Then there is also the fact that I think that everyone is as valuable as everybody else, they simply are valuable for different reasons.
Not everyone can be a leader, especially not at the same time.
This statement is true if being a leader means being in charge. We already talked about that.(Or rather, I wrote about it and you read about it.) Let's say there are four people on a team trying to accomplish something: One is in charge, two is making sure that one doesn't ask the team to do anything stupid, three is ensuring that nothing goes terribly wrong, and four is easing the tension between two and three and making sure that nobody kills each other. All of them are being leaders, but only one of them is in charge. In fact, projects and such go much, much easier when everyone involved is being an active leader.
Quiana should never be a leader, ever, if the world is to survive.
Okay, maybe this isn't a common misconception. But it is a misconception nonetheless. More of a joke than anything else.
So there you have it. Now we will move into...The Leadership Cycle!
I don't know if everyone goes through this cycle, but I certainly do. It should also be important to note that my way of being a leader is taking charge, and that is the kind of leadership I'll be referring to. Let me know whether or not this is similar to your experiences.
Phase one: Doubt
I start out the cycle very unsure of my leadership capabilities. I am hesitant to step up and will always follow because I am afraid that I will mess everything up.
Phase two: Confidence
In this phase, I am usually thrust in a leadership position and I enjoy it very much, and I'm eager to lead again.
Phase three: Pride
This phase speaks for itself. I get cocky and convince myself that I am the absolute best leader ever. I also get very annoyed when anyone else tries to take charge.
Phase four: Failure
I mess up and vow never to lead again.
(Looking back at this cycle, I have decided that if you take away the subtitles and leave the names of the phases, then this cycle applies to just about everything.)
I have a story to illustrate this cycle. Earlier this month was the beginning of the new semester for our school. So it was like the first day of school, except everyone had been at school the week before. My teacher for my favorite class was gone, so we had a sub.
I'm sure that our sub was a wonderful person.
Anyway, the sub gave the class a topic to discuss. It wasn't going anywhere, and somehow I found myself at the head of the discussion. I loved it! I hadn't been a leader in a long time, and I swelled with pride as I noticed how I was keeping the class interested and entertained. After the discussion ended, I was incredibly proud of myself and thought of the amazing class president I would be.
The next day, one of the students mentioned how they were dropping out of that class because all we did was "Sit around and talk about stupid stuff." This particular student was one that I was really looking forward to being in a class with, and he also had been very involved in "my" discussion. Needless to say, I was crushed. The next class, we still had a sub and I was in an extremely poisonous mood. I don't know if it spread or if everyone was feeling rotten in the first place, but class that day was terrible. I haven't really tried to take charge of anything since, because I'm scared that I'll end up too quickly in the "Pride" phase and end up making everyone miserable. Besides, I've discovered that there are other ways to lead beside taking charge.
So what are your thoughts on leadership?
