Why would anyone want to be led by you?

Yesterday, I was busy redesigning a virtual workshop on leadership and management. After some initial contextual positioning on the topic, this forceful reflective question is asked to each participant. It’s posed deliberately, to literally stop participants in their tracks and give them some time to think.

The question arose from a Harvard Business Review some 20 years ago, and has been further developed in their book of a similar name by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones.

My experience of leadership has been three fold:
– By academic study
– Through first hand experience over many years
– In my own consultancy practice.

My discovery is this simple – ultimately, leadership is all about one thing – 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬!

Today is a supremely important day in the USA, that comes around every 4 years. It is election day. For months, we have all been witness to a flood of exaggerations, claims, counter claims, fake news and hyperbole. Today is judgement day.

Both candidates have outlined their answer to the question many times over, outlining what they stand for.  Hopefully, we’ll know the result in the next few days.

So, how about you? Are you clear yet?
What do you stand for?
Why would anyone want to be led by you?