They say there are no stupid questions, but “What is a leader?” may qualify. Still, not having a great answer to that question for most of my adult life was the most significant impediment I faced in embracing the idea of being a leader.
When I was young, I was a Boy Scout. Though people say that scouting is a good way to learn leadership skills, I was mostly in it to get out of the house. Most of what I understood to be leadership fell on the shoulders of the adults in our troop: “Set up your tent.” “Go to sleep.” “Stop throwing that!” During my college years, I took outdoorsy summer jobs that also purported to build leadership skills. Again, it didn’t seem that there was a lot to this leadership thing. Make a menu, organize some outdoorsy work, and tell other outdoorsy kids where to set up their tents and who is cooking dinner and breakfast. I could do all of that, but did that make me a leader?
Years later, after learning construction, co-founding a remodeling business, and hearing about leadership this and that, I was suffering from a mild yet persistent case of what we now call impostor syndrome—the fear of being discovered as a fraud. As a business owner, I was supposed to be good at leadership, but what was leadership?
Leaders are loud, leaders are born. Leaders have been through Navy Seals BUD/S training. Leaders have a particular DISC profile, Kolbe A Index, Myers-Briggs profile, or Dungeons & Dragons character and alignment (Chaotic Neutral Druid here). I’ve never been the square-jawed, loud person who walks in and dominates a room. Natural-born leaders can be heard outside over the din of battle. I’m quiet and avoid loud noises. When I try to shout over noise, my voice cracks like a 13-year-old’s—not the same impact as, say, someone like Jocko Willink, the exemplary square-jawed author of Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win. Not identifying with any of those leadership models contributed to my impostor syndrome; as far as I could tell, I didn’t have the stuff that leaders have.
Clearly, that changed. Several years ago, I got involved with a group of guys who were mostly exercising together and goofing off in the early hours of the morning as part of a loosely organized national group called F3. Its stated mission is to “plant, grow, and serve small men’s workout groups for the invigoration of male community leadership.” I was all-in on the exercise, and meeting some new guys sounded great. The idea of discussing and practicing leadership was intriguing. I didn’t know how jumping jacks, burpees, and push-ups at 5:30 a.m. would contribute to my growth as a leader, but as a lifelong leadership impostor looking for answers, I decided to attend the group’s weekly evening leadership discussions. At one of the initial meetings, a definition of leadership was offered: A leader is a person who influences the movement of a group toward a position of advantage.
Oh. That’s it? All this time, and the answer is that simple. So, when I told those outdoorsy kids to set up the tents over there because they wouldn’t flood if it rained, I was being a leader? And I did that without having graduated from West Point? This was a light-bulb moment. Not only did the concept of leadership suddenly become more relatable, but I also realized that the reason it hadn’t been was that I didn’t have a definition of leadership. With that simple, single-sentence definition, I knew that leadership was not only something that I could do but also something that I had been doing for much of my life.
Of course, owning and managing a business presents more complex challenges than siting tents, and the position of advantage that we need to move toward is not always clear, but the fundamentals are similar. A leader needs to have the vision to see the position of advantage and clearly articulate how to get there. And a leader needs to embrace the fact that movement will cause disruption of the status quo. Seeing the good spot for the tents, telling people where to set them up, and understanding the extra effort it might take is easier than, say, restructuring the roles and responsibilities of the members of your production department, but here is the fantastic other thing I realized about leadership after learning this definition: Anyone can practice the required skills and get better at them. The notion of a “born leader” is baloney. Some people might be born with a square jaw and a loud voice, but nobody is born a leader.
In the exercise group, everyone shares in leading workouts. Every week, anyone can plan a workout and lead a small group for an hour. It’s good practice in a safe space where failure will not cost anyone anything. Similarly, there are plenty of other low-pressure opportunities for anyone to practice leadership by moving any group they are associated with to a position of advantage. Planning a family vacation with my wife is an opportunity to practice leadership. So is planning with friends to go camping or meet up for a mountain bike ride. Grocery shopping with my kids might be the most challenging leadership practice. Understanding what leadership is helps me find opportunities to practice and continually polish leadership skills for more significant tasks; without a good definition and lots of practice, I would still be floundering as a leadership impostor.
