The Responsibility of Leadership
Leadership is an important conversation now more than ever. With a recent coup staged against our government, we see how influential leadership can be… even when it goes against our laws, democratic process, and a slew of other morals.
Whether you’re leading people as the title of your role or influencing those around you, it’s essential to stay acutely aware of the manner in which we’re leading and tone we use with our audience. It can be an audience of 5 or 5 million – leadership is not defined by how many we have behind us. I never thought I would want a role as a traditional people leader, but the more I lean into the responsibility even in a volunteer role, the more I’m kind of loving it.
I’ve spent the past two years consuming everything that I can about leadership styles. I wasn’t reading this type of content in anticipation of leading a team, but more so because I find psychological and sociological concepts incredibly intriguing. I could spend hours reading research by Brene Brown – one of my favorite authors. She had such interesting findings in her studies that it made me want to use her tools just to see if they worked.
As I started implementing these concepts with my volunteer team, I noticed a shift in our membership. Over time, they attended more meetings, presented more ideas, participated in conversation more frequently, and (what I didn’t expect) told their friends about this team. This didn’t take long in terms of the number of times that I worked with this team which means that these proven methods, when applied correctly, do yield results.
This didn’t hit me until I held a recent meeting with a new member one-on-one. As we were discussing how our team operated, she was asking a lot of questions on the process or who to contact for certain initiatives. I started realizing that my leadership style actually did empower my volunteers to make an impact in a way they were passionate about. I was simply facilitating and enabling. Once the words left my mouth, I was really shocked.
Earlier in my career as an individual contributor, I had micromanagement tendencies, timeline obsession, and had to have my hands in everything. I remember a manager specifically challenging me to delegate responsibility and it was so tough for me to relinquish control at that time. Recalling early experiences of leading projects and people, my leadership style has done a full 180 in the best way possible.
What does all this have to do with the recent coup?
You can be a fantastic leader enabling and facilitating for your team, but it’s ethically inappropriate to use that power and influence in a destructive way. I’ve heard the argument of ignorance – that it wasn’t meant to sound or read a certain way and that wasn’t the intention. The more we see continued evidence surface, the more it becomes apparent that stance is a blatant lie.
As a leader, no matter the style or capacity, your actions have either obvious consequences or great positive impact. Whether or not you hold a leadership title, you remain accountable (even if it’s only a suggestion) for the actions of your team/followers/audience. Even if you’re simply enabling and facilitating, you have the responsibility to guide others in the right direction.
I know for myself that my goal for this year is to make calculated business decisions that will empower the people around me to succeed (whatever that definition is for them) and in turn, have them strive for more.
How do you plan to use your leadership to influence in a positive way?
-Rachel
